Aces Flushed: Patrick Reed Leaves LIV Golf

LIV Golf is leaking oil.

The day before Brooks Koepka is set to make his return to the PGA Tour, another prominent player announced he is taking his talents away from LIV Golf. Patrick Reed is coming back to the PGA Tour as a past champion member for the 2027 season and, because he resigned his Tour membership before he violated any Tour regulations by playing in LIV events, he is eligible to return to Tour events on August 25, 2026. Until then, Reed will play on the DP World Tour as an Honorary Lifetime Member.

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With less than a week before the season-opening event in Saudi Arabia, where does this leave the breakaway league? In its early days, a LIV Golf official once described the process of creating its product as building a plane while it’s in the air. Three years later, a more apt analogy would be repairing holes to the hull of a ship that’s halfway sunk. LIV has lost more star players in the last month than it has added over the previous two years. The league is promoted as a global tour, and it’s tough to accurately gauge viewership around the world with streaming options, but it’s clear that hardly anyone is watching in the U.S., its biggest market. Events still don’t offer Official World Golf Ranking points, and the move from 54- to 72-hole events – an attempt to earn OWGR points – riled up a lot of players who signed up to work one less day a week for more money.

My colleague Joseph LaMagna made a fair point in preaching caution over the narrative that "now LIV is screwed!” and he’s right. The ship has always had holes. They’re just a lot bigger now and harder to cover. The next logical question is: who’s next? Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and Cam Smith – the three other players eligible for the Tour’s Returning Member Program that allowed for Koepka’s return – have all said they’re staying with LIV. But could that change?

Rahm is a student of the game who knows and appreciates its history. He’s also the same guy who pledged his “fealty” to the PGA Tour, then flip-flopped a year later to take the Saudi bag. Meanwhile, the PGA Tour is so eager to play offense under new CEO Brian Rolapp that it’s welcoming back a player who sued the members just two years ago. So let’s not rule out some more fireworks before the Tour’s deadline on February 2.

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