Brendan: Joseph, it’s high season for LIV chatter. They’re staging individual and team championships in back-to-back weeks, teasing more player signings, and the ongoing and perhaps everlasting PIF-PGA Tour deal talks are still dangling out there. As with most updates on this subject matter, the bigger news this week came off the course.

The kerfuffle this week came via a Bloomberg report that LIV players may need to pay back the money they’ve made there as some sort of reunification program. Golf Digest’s Joel Beall clarified that the biggest hangup is actually how players are re-assimilated into the PGA Tour. What’s the penalty, what hoops do they jump through to rejoin, and where do they go for it? Are there tiers of players with different statuses? Is there Q-School? This assumes everyone would want to come back in a future merger deal, which is unlikely. But let’s do away with all the fancy lawyers, financiers, superfluous Tour execs, and temperamental pros. Say you’re Golf Czar for a day with absolute decision-making authority. What kind of re-assimilation program would you create for LIV players returning to the PGA Tour if/when this deal is done?

Joseph: Well Brendan, let me just say that if we’re going to link to a “tease” involving a Phil Mickelson wink, I’m relieved the landing page is a Josh Carpenter tweet.

But ok, yes, let’s assume that every LIV golfer wants to play on the PGA Tour, which feels like a big assumption. I think there’s an opportunity to solve two problems with one stone, so to speak.

PGA Tour events lacked buzz this year, and I’m not sure reintegrating the collection of LIV golfers with fan appeal solves that problem. I believe a significant part of the problem with PGA Tour events this year was field size. The 70-man signature events with a 50-player cutline didn’t result in compelling competition.

So I would expand field sizes in signature events to 90 players with a 50-player cut and allocate 10-15 of those spots to LIV players. Priority order can be based on the LIV points system or just coming out of a meeting room with a sheet of names. I don’t think it’s particularly important how you get there. I’d probably give some status to another 10-15 LIV golfers to enter PGA Tour non-signature events. Everyone else can go through Q-School. And there would be zero penalty for playing on LIV, whether you were part of the lawsuit against the PGA Tour or not. It’s time to move on.

Brendan: We’re going to set aside financial penalties in this exercise. Seems sticky, counter-productive, and improbable. I think 10-15 signature-eligible players is way too many and too benevolent. Is the Tour missing a lot of LIV guys? There are five whales or so that you really want back. Create some made-up exemption for those guys (say, major winners over the last however many years) to get them back in the big events. This would be Bryson, Brooks, Rahm, DJ, and Cam Smith. Then I think the next five are some combination of lifetime PGA Tour earnings (Phil, Sergio) and LIV standings for whatever recent season (this year it would be Niemann, Hatton, Oosthuizen.) I don’t think there’s much bending over backwards that needs to be done after that. Get the big names eligible into the top events. A second tier likely revolves around players who have done well in OWGR events getting into non-signatures. The rest can go to KFT or DPWT to get back onto the big tour with status, if they want it. And many may not.

I think a big question in all of this is Phil, too. I doubt he has a ton of interest in playing on the PGA Tour, unless it’s to just stir some shit up while grinning and winking his way through it. And it’s probably quite personal on the Tour side, too. But he’s a lifetime member, and it would be a sticky situation for sure! But setting aside personal grievances, admittedly a big factor and one not easily dismissed, this does not seem that complicated on the reintegration front. Some version of LIV will remain and whoever wants to can keep up appearances there.

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