Brooks Koepka to LIV Golf: PGA TOUR Offers Few Answers at Travelers Championship Meeting
Getty Images. Pictured: Brooks Koepka (left) and PGA TOUR commissioner Jay Monahan.
CROMWELL, Conn. — If you’ve lost all sense of time in the breakneck news cycle of professional golf, that’s totally understandable. The past two weeks have felt like an accelerated video game simulation, making it perhaps the world’s only sport which moves at a more rapid pace off the field of play than on it.
I can assure you, though, that it was only seven days ago when Brooks Koepka lamented a line of questioning at the U.S. Open about potentially joining the LIV Golf Invitational Series, culminating in a cryptic dismissal.
“There's been no other option to this point,” he said, “so where else are you going to go?”
One week later, Koepka has discovered an option, reportedly following Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and his ol’ pal Bryson DeChambeau on the same LIV Tour he was recently bemoaning.
Told you things are moving quickly.
There exists some semblance of irony that news of Koepka’s decision broke Tuesday morning at the same time PGA TOUR commissioner Jay Monahan was holding a meeting with the player membership here at TPC River Highlands, site of this week’s Travelers Championship.
According to multiple sources in the meeting, there were a lot of questions and not many answers.
Players asked about the Official World Golf Ranking, which employs an algorithm that will soon change, and whether LIV Golf competitors will be able to accrue points, thereby theoretically enabling them to qualify for future major championships.
The answer to that question, of course, is that it remains an unknown for now. LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman has petitioned for OWGR status, suggesting that Monahan, who serves on the board which oversees these matters, recuse himself from voting.
Players also asked about rumors that the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) is negotiating a sale to LIV Golf and whether the PGA TOUR, which has a partnership with the DP World circuit, would make a similar inquiry.
Again, the response to this question was hardly definitive, as essentially everything is up in the air and any potential decisions are still on the table.
It has been reported, though, that the fall portion of the schedule will include eight no-cut, big-money events, perhaps enticing some would-be LIVers to reconsider their position on sticking with the status quo.
Even that news, however, underscores the main theme of Tuesday’s meeting, as sources maintain that many of Monahan’s answers included some form of, “We’ve got to wait and see how things play out,” and, “There’s a process we need to go through.”
That’s not exactly the call to action some have requested, as the commissioner has been a less vocal authority on all of this uncertainty than the likes of Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm, though Monahan is scheduled to hold a press conference here at the Travelers on Wednesday.
In terms of golf’s news cycle, that’s a long time from now. As we know, plenty of stories could break between now and then.
Like this one: As of the time of this writing, Koepka is still in this week’s field and scheduled to compete in this event. Other PGA TOUR players who left for LIV Golf weren’t suspended — for legal reasons — until they actually hit a shot in one of those tournaments.
All of which means the latest craziness might not even be as crazy as it gets.
Or maybe that won’t happen. After all, in the furious, fast-paced world of golf news, everything changes in a hurry these days.
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