‘Brooks Koepka is returning to the PGA Tour,’ a rumor that started a couple of months ago, thanks to Fred Couples’s comments that “he [Koepka] really wants to come back and play the Tour.” Then, Koepka weakly defended himself with the famous sentence, “I don’t know where I am going, so I don’t know how everybody else does” against the question about his LIV Golf contract expiration. But, Koepka wasn’t done with adding fire to the rumor mill.

He made bigger waves with his complaints against his current employer, with the latest complaint coming ahead of LIV Golf Miami. And it came as negatively as you would expect. Sitting down for an interview ahead of the Miami event, Koepka said, “I think we all hoped it would have been a little bit further along, and that’s no secret. No matter where you’re at, you always hope everything is further along. But they’re making progress, and it seems to be going in the right direction.” Interestingly, not the first time. The complaints may also be about LIV golfers not receiving OWGR ranking despite all the promises and hard work. But was Koepka done? No.

In the latest, the LIV golfer has again pushed the “Koepka may return to the Tour” narrative with his recent comments. He wants to rejoin PGA Tour events or, at least, some of them. “I still have a good relationship with everybody there. There’s a lot of ‘what-ifs’, but I’d be open to playing certain (PGA Tour) events. “Like I love Phoenix, The Cognizant Classic, because it’s my hometown. I’d love to play Dunhill, but if we can’t that’s OK. I’ve made my decision. I think each year at LIV has got better. And that should be the goal, right?” 

A lot to unpack, so let’s go through it one at a time. Of course, Koepka hasn’t played in any of the aforementioned events since joining LIV in 2022. But he has constantly played against his former Tour friends in the golf majors. And he will be doing that in a week once again at The 2025 Masters. Additionally, Koepka can’t play in any Tour events until a year after stopping to play LIV Golf events. But Koepka’s faith in LIV Golf may be based on shaky grounds.

For instance, it is true that the Saudi-backed league, for the first time since its inception, partnered with a major TV network in the U.S. But it hasn’t been very successful. LIV Golf’s season-opener in Riyadh got a paltry 12,000 viewers before making sharp progress in the final round in Adelaide with 249,000 viewers. That looked promising, however, it did not stay like that for long. In the following two events, the league drew 29,000 viewers (Hong Kong) and 34,000 viewers (Singapore) in the final rounds. Not exactly the success that Adelaide achieved.

However, what should worry LIV Golf is its top golfers’ constant wish to participate in the Tour events. And no, Brooks Koepka isn’t alone. In addition to Koepka, even Jon Rahm shared similar feelings last year ahead of the event in Adelaide. Rahm listed a few Tour events that he does wish to play on, including the Genesis Invitational and the PLAYERS Championship. But are the views of LIV Golf’s problem the same for CEO Scott O’Neil?

Scott O’Neil is trying to fix LIV Golf issues one at a time

Before Scott O’Neil, LIV Golf was eager to make its presence known in the golf world against the giant PGA Tour. And one of the ways it established itself was via its slogan: “Golf, But Louder.” Then, Scott O’Neil replaced the former LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman and softened the approach by changing the slogan to “Long LIV Golf.” And despite the many troubles the Saudi-backed league seems to face in the U.S., it sounds friendly.

Talking about the same in Miami, O’Neil said, “(We’re) moving from ‘Golf, But Louder’ … like rough-and-tumble or adversarial, to ‘Long LIV Golf.’” Of course, one of the reasons why O’Neil wants to focus on this particular thing is because he wants to “grow this game of golf” by bringing together “some of the greatest players in the world.” This is a sentiment that you will see reflected in almost everyone who is involved with the sport, no matter on what side.

Additionally, despite the stalled merger, Scott O’Neil has actively tried to fulfill its promises to its golfers, namely getting the league’s golfers major exemptions. Recently, R&A promised LIV golfers exemption from the Open Championship, the second major to do so after the U.S. Open. Acknowledging it, O’Neil said, “We thank Mark Darbon for his leadership and the R&A for taking this step for the benefit of moving golf forward.” So it seems that LIV golfers might soon be getting recognized by the OWGR and additionally have the opportunity to play in PGA Tour events without any restrictions.