Players associated with LIV Golf now face a tougher path to reinstatement with the PGA Tour, after Saudi Arabia confirmed it had withdrawn financial backing in April and LIV cancelled next week’s Team Championship. That cancellation makes this week’s Indianapolis event the breakaway league’s season finale, increasing doubt about LIV’s short-term stability ahead of the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club.
McIlroy pointed to the concessions already accepted by Brooks Koepka when the five-time major winner rejoined the PGA Tour in January. Koepka forfeited any player equity shares for the next five years, is ineligible for the $100m FedEx Cup bonus scheme this year, and made a $5m donation to charity as part of his return. McIlroy said, "I'm not part of the discussions but I'm pretty sure they aren't going to be welcomed back straight away," and added that the returning-member programme offered in February, the one Koepka took, "has come and gone" and any future deal would likely be less generous.
The Northern Irishman reiterated his long-held critique, saying "LIV has never been a good thing for the game," while adding he refuses to take "personal satisfaction from people losing jobs." He praised the PGA Tour as the "best platform for top professional golfers in the world" and argued that, were the PGA Tour given $6bn, "it would have done a better job than LIV." LIV has said it secured an unnamed lead investor to keep the competition running in 2027, but the funding shift and cancelled events leave the league’s calendar and player futures in flux.
McIlroy arrives at the BMW Championship after shooting eight-over par to finish 66th at last week’s FedEx St Jude Championship in Memphis, saying modest progress would be a win. World number one Scottie Scheffler, by contrast, won in St Louis and pushed his career PGA Tour earnings to $119,964,411, narrowly behind Tiger Woods on $120,999,166. Scheffler noted that the earnings gap "has a lot to do with the purses" and said, "I'm not really too close to him in terms of career wins." His St Louis victory marked his 21st PGA Tour win, while Woods has 82, a gap that underlines the PGA Tour’s continuing draw for elite players.
With LIV’s future unsettled and the PGA Tour positioned as the stable stage for top professionals, the immediate question is whether players tied to the breakaway league will accept the terms required to return, or whether prolonged uncertainty will reshape elite golf’s competitive landscape.
