DP World Tour could be pathway for Brooks Koepka back to PGA Tour

The game’s governing bodies and all the leading tours virtually shut down, meaning golf writers can switch off their laptops for a spell without worrying about anything big happening. Or that’s how it normally works.

Before we’d sat down for Christmas dinner on this occasion, five-time major winner Brooks Koepka announced he’d left the LIV Golf League in order to prioritise “the needs of his family”.

Make no mistake, that was a huge development, though myself and others had started to wonder if something was in the offing with the American after he’d played in four events in quick succession on the DP World Tour towards the end of the 2025 campaign.

It’s no secret, of course, that Koepka used what was then called the Challenge Tour - he won the Scottish Hydro Challenge at Macdonald Spey Valley in Aviemore in 2013 - and then the European Tour to launch his professional career, loving the opportunities that were available to him at that time.

He’s turned a bit dour since then and now gives little away, a bit like Tiger Woods in his heyday, yet there can be no denying that his next step is going to be very interesting indeed.

As has been the case since the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League was launched, Koepka will be eligible for all of the four majors in 2026 and, as three PGA Championships wins and a brace of US Open victories showed in the space of six years, he’s one of those players who have something special in the tank.

Koepka, of course, was banned from playing on the PGA Tour following his switch to the breakaway circuit and only time will tell what lies ahead for him in the short term on the US circuit.

Talks between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf around a Framework Agreement struck in June 2023 don’t seem to be making any real headway, though, in the background, the respective heads of those circuits might know otherwise.

‘Somebody has to give something’ in ongoing talks

As highlighted, however, before the decision made by Koepka, by a senior figure in the company backing the circuit until 2035 after extending a deal struck in 2022, it could be the case that the DP World Tour provides a pathway for LIV Golf players reaching a stage where they want to be back playing on the PGA Tour.

“We are not privy to those conversations, and nor should we be,” DP World group communications officer Danny van Otterdijk said during a chat with a small group of reporters at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai in November.

“But I sincerely hope the conversations with LIV are productive and collaborative and conciliatory, because that's what's needed. Somebody has to give something, right? Otherwise, it's never going to work. And that's where the impasse is at the moment is the parties are not necessarily willing to move from the position they have.

“But, ultimately, you have to. Next year, LIV has a bunch of contracts from big players, John Rahm being one, Tyrrell Hatton being another, and they are playing on the European Tour more and more now with the Ryder Cup as an incentive but also rankings and getting into the majors and things like that. Tyrrell in particular needs that as he’s not a major champion yet.

“So those guys may decide, ‘look, we've made our money on the LIV tour. We'd like to go back to do other tours. How exactly will that happen?’ I don't know. That'll be the other interesting bit. Do they come back via the DP World Tour, for example, as currently there is a roadblock back to the PGA Tour, right?

“But I would foresee that Guy [Kinnings, the DP World Tour CEO] might look at this and say, ‘well, come back via the DP World Tour, earn one of the ten cards and make your way back that way’. That would maybe be a good way of doing it, and that would suit us. I think (2026) will be a really interesting year.”

Having already joined Koepka in a posse of LIV Golf players for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on Scottish soil in the autumn, former world No 1 Dustin Johnson is making his debut in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic in a fortnight’s time, when his rivals at Emirates Golf Club will include Masters champion Rory McIlroy and FedEx Cup winner Tommy Fleetwood.

Johnson has been invited because the event organisers believe he adds something to the field, and, though that may be hard to stomach for a full DP World Tour card holder who is likely to be squeezed out, it’s difficult to disagree with that viewpoint.

Current situation ‘not healthy for golf in long term’

As was the case, for example, when Martin Kaymer, another LIV Golf star, teed up in the BMW International Open in Munich last summer and was joined in that field by two Masters champions in Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia.

As McIlroy mentioned in his enlightening chat on The Overlap’s Stick To Football Podcast over the festive period, there can be no denying that the four majors in particular and the Ryder Cup to a lesser extent are benefitting from the shortage of all the game’s top players competing against each other at the moment.

The sooner that is happening again on a frequent basis the better because, quite frankly, the current situation isn’t healthy for golf in the long term. So here’s hoping that there is something behind Koepka’s decision and let’s not kid ourselves because LIV Golf losing him is way more significant than changes to the circuit’s format and field sizes for 2026.