Getty Image / Rob Carr
Nobody knows what the landscape of professional golf will look like at this time next year and anyone claiming to know is wrong.
The LIV Golf-PGA Tour merger still has to be approved by the PGA Tour’s board of directors. Should that happen, the tours will begin to assimilate in ways that remain to be seen. Presumably, (some?) former PGA Tour golfers who left for LIV will return to the PGA Tour but Phil Mickelson says otherwise.
In response to a report from The Fried Egg that certain LIV Golf Tour members will face harsher penalties than others, Phil Mickelson took to Twitter to dismiss it in its entirety.
The report claims LIV Golf members who participated in litigation against the PGA Tour (Phil Mickelson, Pat Perez, etc) will face the harshest penalties while golfers like Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson who left amicably and quietly will face a difference set of penalties. Mickelson shuts that all down and says “Not a single player on LIV wants to play PGA Tour.”
Mickelson wrote:
“What a colossal waste of time.Not a single player on LIV wants to play PGA Tour. It would require a public apology and restitution to LIV playersfor paying millions to Clout media to disparage all of us.A better topic is future sanctions for the many players who now come to LIV.”
😂What a colossal waste of time.Not a single player on LIV wants to play PGA Tour. It would require a public apology and restitution to LIV playersfor paying millions to Clout media to disparage all of us.A better topic is future sanctions for the many players who now come to LIV
— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) July 30, 2023
The way Phil Mickelson sees it, more players will want to leave the PGA Tour for LIV after a merger is approved and not the other way around. Mickelson surely has anecdotal evidence for this but it remains to be seen if this is actually true or not.
Nor do we know how many current LIV Golf Tour members want to return to the PGA Tour. However, the report shared on Twitter via The Fried Egg claims that golfers who left the PGA Tour for LIV will likely need to regain their PGA Tour status through Q School, the same as other prospective PGA Tour members.
It is hard to imagine a world where Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, and Cameron Smith (8 Major Championships between them) are forced to go to Q School. The PGA Tour, and more importantly, its sponsors, know the Tour is better off with those players on the PGA Tour than fighting for their card in Q School.
On Twitter, one person replied to Phil’s response with “‘Expect a lot of LIV players to be forced to earn their card back through Q-School.’ They really think top players, who’ve been playing for $25m a week, are going to do that and Yasir is going to allow it to happen to those who supported him. Can’t make it up.”
Another said “Are they pandering to sponsors etc or simply in denial ? The public sees it exactly as Phil has described it here.” Someone else joked “Most LIV players don’t want to play on the PGA Tour because that would require them to leave their Tuesday night men’s league and actually have to work to compete.”