Brian Rolapp: The Wartime CEO the PGA Tour Needed

Humility is not a word you’d typically conjure when talking about Brooks Koepka, a five-time major winner who never met a fellow professional golfer outside of Tiger Woods that he didn’t delight in dismissing. But when the PGA Tour announced this week that Koepka was coming back as part of its Returning Member Program, the news came with Koepka’s surprising acknowledgement that he knew he had some crow to eat with his old-but-new colleagues.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do with the players and I want to do that one-on-one,” Koepka told Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch. “I want to have those conversations, but behind closed doors."

It’s fun to imagine Koepka walking down the driving range at the WM Phoenix Open next month, trying to mend fences and alliances like a disgraced politician who wants to win back the trust of the electorate, if only because it goes against type. But it’s just as interesting — maybe even more so — to think about the man who made Koepka’s return possible by doing the opposite.

Brian Rolapp, the new PGA Tour CEO, is not approaching the job with either meekness or humility. He’s more interested in war.

Even if you believe, as I do, that former PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan was a decent man who happened to be dealt a losing hand the minute the Saudis became interested in blowing up professional golf, it’s impossible to imagine Monahan doing what Rolapp did this past week, going on offense instead of being resigned to play defense in perpetuity.

Even if Monahan had wanted to consider bringing Koepka back to the PGA Tour, there would have been policy board meetings and subcommittee discussions and Zoom calls with Patrick Cantlay and Tiger Woods. It would have dragged on for months. It would have been like trying to drag a bill through the House of Representatives, with Monahan needing to ensure every constituency they would be taken care of along the way.

Rolapp blew through all that in a weekend, according to reporting from Joel Beall of Golf Digest. He accomplished in five days what Monahan could not in five years.

He put LIV on the defensive.

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It’s possible that Rolapp was following the Silicon Valley mantra of “move fast and break things” when he offered Koepka, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, and Cam Smith an opportunity to return to the PGA Tour. But I was reminded of something more old school. Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather.” Sometimes you need a peacetime leader, and sometimes you need a wartime leader. If Jay Monahan was Tom Hagen, then Brian Rolapp aspires to be as ruthless as Michael Corleone.

Rolapp, in fairness to Monahan, has powers that his predecessor did not. That was one of the tradeoffs for the membership when they agreed to accept a $3 billion investment from the Strategic Sports Group. Monahan didn’t have the political capital to do what Rolapp is doing, but he also didn’t have the stomach. The one time he tried to be bold and decisive — negotiating a framework agreement between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund — the players revolted. The deal fizzled and is now almost certainly dead.

But Rolapp also appears to have the stomach for changes that would have been hard to envision under Monahan. If the PGA Tour decides to abandon its Hawaii swing and eliminate career money list exemptions for aging players in 2027 — two elements we know Rolapp is considering — it will be because he is attempting to modernize the product without giving much consideration to sentiment. He is acting like NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has at times, bulldozing through tradition and making himself the final authority on matters of business.

There is a very good chance that none of the LIV players Rolapp opened the door to will take him up on the offer to return. Rahm would have to walk away from hundreds of millions in guaranteed money, plus embroil himself in years of legal challenges. “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” Rahm said on Tuesday. “I wish Brooks the best, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m focused on LIV for this year and hoping my team can repeat as champs.”

DeChambeau’s answer was less definitive. “I’ve got a contract this year and that’s just going to be an ever-evolving conversation,” he said during a LIV press conference. “Hopefully, I’m back next year. I’m excited for the potential of LIV. It just has to make sense for both sides, and we’ll move forward in a cool direction if that’s the case. I certainly don’t want to let [my Crushers GC teammates] down.”

Earlier in the day, DeChambeau posted a picture of himself (on Instagram Stories) standing in a stairwell next to an EXIT sign captioned with the question: What would you do?

Smith, meanwhile, said he is enjoying spending more time in Australia and that he is committed to LIV “for years to come.”

All of this means LIV will likely survive (for now), unless DeChambeau and Rahm suddenly feel like Rolapp has made them an offer they can’t refuse. But even if they do stay, change is coming to the PGA Tour.

It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.