SAN DIEGO — It remains to be seen if Brooks Koepka’s departure from LIV Golf will create cascading dominoes, but the timeline of Patrick Reed’s exodus from the Saudi-backed league is compelling.
Reed, who won the DP World Tour event in Dubai last weekend and revealed afterward he was still negotiating with LIV for a contract in 2026, announced on social media Wednesday that he was leaving LIV and planned to return to the PGA Tour later this fall.
A quick survey of the landscape would suggest the Tour — which carved out an exemption to its regulations earlier this month to open the door to Koepka’s immediate return to the circuit — reacted quickly to an opportunity in bringing Reed back to the fold, although his return will be delayed seven months. But the truth is, Reed’s return had been in the works for some time, much like Koepka’s.
Two days after the Tour established the “Returning Member Program” — which opened the door for Koepka, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith — Team Reed reached out to the Tour to test the waters.
Unlike Koepka, and the three other players who had been singled out for having won a major or a Players Championship since 2022, Reed was placed in line to return according to the Tour’s regulations. In fact, he’s not even the first player in line. Hudson Swafford, Kevin Na and Pat Perez have all asked to be reinstated as members since leaving LIV Golf.
This outcome is as nuanced as the manufactured program that facilitated Koepka’s return.
On Wednesday, players at Torrey Pines said the right thing as news of Reed’s returned spread.
“You bring back another incredible personality to the PGA Tour. A major champion, a world class player, it’s amazing,” Keegan Bradley said. “I have a lot of faith in [Tour CEO] Brian Rolapp and the board that they are going to do the right thing. You need to capitalize when great players want to come back.
“I’m welcoming everyone who wants to come back. I don’t have any hard feelings towards them.”
Some Tour types even used the moment to take a victory lap.
“I think people want to be on the PGA Tour. It’s the best Tour in the world, the most competitive Tour,” J.J. Spaun said. “I think Patrick will be a good asset to this Tour and I think it just speaks volumes to where the Tour’s headed. I think to add even more competition for us that have been here while they left, and adding Brooks and Patrick now, it’s just strengthening our Tour, which I think is great.”
Left unsaid Wednesday at the Farmers Insurance Open, where Koepka will mark his return to the PGA Tour as a member, was how the Tour deftly avoided a potentially costly misstep by carving out a similarly expedited return for Reed.
By putting Reed in lockstep with the already established regulations for a potential return to the Tour, officials sent a clear message to both its membership and those at LIV who may be mulling a return of their own. Fast-tracking Reed for a return like Koepka would have undermined the credibility Rolapp & Co. created with the Returning Member Program and likely rankled some members who are, frankly, not P-Reed fans.
The move also makes the path back to the Tour for those who tested the LIV waters abundantly clear, a journey that just a few months ago was shrouded in uncertainty.
It’s a message that’s impossible to ignore regardless of which side of golf’s divide you reside.
“As you’re seeing, kind of the dominoes are starting to fall, maybe those guys on the LIV tour are not that happy out there and the grass is not greener on the other side,” Harris English said. “They’re seeing the PGA Tour getting stronger and having more success, and kind of seeing that money’s not the end all, be all.
“Like that doesn’t fulfill them. They’re still competitors, they’re competitive people and they love playing in the biggest events against the best players in the world.”
After 3 ½ contentious years, no one at the Tour is cracking open the champaign or hoisting “Mission Accomplished” banners in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, and Reed’s return feels more like a single move on the board than checkmate, but in a game that thrives on momentum it’s clear which side won January.