Tom Watson demands PGA Tour have no mercy for LIV | Golf News

Two-time Masters winner Tom Watson believes that any LIV Golf participant searching for to return to the PGA Tour ought to face penalties after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced it might be withdrawing its funding from the breakaway league.

Following a week of hypothesis about LIV Golf‘s future, it was confirmed on Thursday that PIF will probably be ending its financial backing for the league at the conclusion of the 2026 season. It has also been confirmed that PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayan has resigned from his place as LIV Golf chairman during a major restructuring, which has resulted in the creation of a new unbiased board headed by Gene Davis and Jon Zinman.

The announcement of PIF’s determination to end its funding of LIV will nearly actually encourage some of the tour’s distinguished names to comply with Brooks Koepka’s instance and return to the PGA Tour. Meanwhile, a PGA Tour star was caught off-guard by Phil Mickelson’s presence at Donald Trump’s course.

Koepka, who rejoined the PGA Tour earlier this yr, did so via the Returning Members Program, a doubtlessly one-time and restricted pathway for gamers to rejoin the group. However, Patrick Reed, another LIV-defector, didn’t meet the necessities for the Returning Members Program, that means he’ll have to wait until 2027 for full reinstatement.

In the meantime, he’s competing on the DP World Tour. Watson, however, believes Koepka ought to have acquired a lifetime ban, or at minimal been required to spend a yr competing on the Korn Ferry Tour, the developmental tour below the PGA Tour.

Speaking forward of the Masters earlier this yr, the eight-time major champion argued that gamers searching for to return to the PGA Tour ought to face penalties for abandoning it for LIV Golf. “The Tour made a decision to renege on what they promised when the players left for LIV. They felt that the compensation that he’s [Koepka] paid is good enough,” Watson said, persevering with, “I thought the LIV players, when they left, they were supposed to be banned for life. If I was commissioner, that’s what I would do.

“I’d say if you are completed with your contract with LIV Golf, if you need to play the PGA Tour again, you come back, and you must play the Korn Ferry Tour for a yr to qualify for it.

“They [the PGA Tour] saw it differently.” In Watson’s view, the gamers who deserted the PGA Tour inflicted irreparable injury to its sponsors, one thing which troubled Watson. “When the players left, they violated the number one rule that we really had out here, which is to protect the sponsors,” he added.

“Sponsors need players. They need the names to be able to promote their tournaments.

“If the gamers play wherever they need to play without a conflicting event rule, where you had to search the permission of the PGA Tour to play in a match reverse of a PGA Tour match, the sponsors could be harm by that. I feel we all understood that.

“When the players left for LIV, I think it was basically over. They chose to go for the money, which is fine, but to return to the Tour, I thought, was a nonstarter, but apparently it’s not.”