Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
LIV Golf is currently on life support, and all signs point to the plug being pulled when it reaches the end of its current season. The players who currently rely on the league for a paycheck will find themselves in need of a new gig, and it does not sound like Bryson DeChambeau is in a rush to reunite with the PGA Tour as things currently stand.
Bryson DeChambeau repeatedly denied he had any interest in defecting from the PGA Tour as LIV Golf was gearing up to kick off its inaugural season in 2022, but he reversed course when he made the leap as the upstart league was holding its first-ever tournament in the United Kingdom.
Many golfers have faded into obscurity after switching their allegiance, but DeChambeau is easily the most notable exception. He joined Brooks Koepka as the only other LIV golfer to win a major while affiliated with the league with a victory at the U.S. Open in 2024, and he has done an objectively fantastic job growing his Personal Brand with the YouTube channel that has around 2.7 million subscribers.
The 32-year-old is also the most marketable name that LIV Golf can claim, and based on reports that have surfaced amid its seemingly imminent collapse, he believes he brings hundreds of millions of dollars worth of value to the table.
However, it’s become increasingly clear he does not see eye-to-eye with the powers that be on the PGA Tour, and he does not appear in a rush to return if they don’t make some concessions.
Bryson DeChambeau says he’ll focus on his YouTube channel as opposed to returning to the PGA Tour if LIV Golf collapses
LIV Golf purportedly has enough money to finish a season that is slated to wrap up at The Cardinal at Saint John’s in Michigan at the end of August, and it will hold its seventh tournament of the season at Trump National this week.
The league’s future has obviously been a hot topic of conversation in the lead-up to the event, and according to ESPN, DeChambeau offered some insight into his future while speaking with the media on Tuesday, saying:
“I think, from my perspective, I’d love to grow my YouTube channel three times, maybe even more. I would love to. I’d love to do a bunch of dubbing in different languages, giving the world more reason to watch YouTube. And then I’d love to play tournaments that want me.”
It appears that plan has something to do with the unspecified sanctions DeChambeau says he’ll be forced to stomach if he attempts to return to the PGA Tour. He declined to apply for the Returning Member Program that Koepka took advantage of, and he described the punishment he’ll be facing as “quite unfortunate, in my opinion, considering what I could do for them.”
That came from the same man who said “The egos need to get dropped” while discussing his hope for some kind of compromise in a situation where the PGA Tour has almost all of the leverage, so it will be interesting to see if he sticks to his word once the reckoning rolls around.