In October 2023, Brooks Koepka told the ‘BS with Jake Paul’ podcast that he signed with LIV Golf for the money and revealed he received at least $100 million for doing so, with an ear-to-ear grin.
This is what the new Saudi-funded league valued the then four-time major winner and former World No.1 back in 2022, and it bought them four seasons of service.
This was somewhat of a knockout blow for LIV, given Koepka had overlooked any degree of innovation that LIV claimed to show, hitting harder than the right hand Anthony Joshua landed on this very podcast host’s jaw last December, breaking it in two places.
Koepka was never as invested in LIV as some of his fellow defectors. He might have been the Smash GC captain, but wasn’t big on wearing the team uniforms, and once admitted, had his career not been blighted by so many injuries, that he might not have left the PGA Tour in the first place.
When asked about the importance of his victory at the 2023 PGA Championship for the rebel circuit, he said, “I definitely think it helps LIV, but I’m more interested in my own self right now.”
If there were doubts about Koepka’s enthusiasm for the new tour, masterminded by former CEO Greg Norman and bankrolled by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, they were absolutely confirmed two days before Christmas when his departure was announced.
How much, if any at all, of his nine-figure sign-on package he might have to give back remains unclear, but after four years, Koepka earned just shy of $45 million with LIV.
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His team said in a statement: “Family has always guided Brooks’s decisions, and he feels this is the right moment to spend more time at home.”
At the start of October 2025, Koepka’s wife Jena Sims revealed that after 16 weeks of pregnancy, their baby’s heart stopped beating. Jena gave birth to their first child, Crew, at the end of July 2023.
While Koepka’s priorities remain with his family, from a sporting perspective, it would be a surprise if the 35-year-old remained inactive for large parts of 2026. He came tied 15th at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland in October, a tournament that finished the day before his wife made their devastating news public.
Brooks Koepka: LIV Golf departure has us guessing what is next
Having won the PGA Championship only three years ago, he is eligible for all four majors, the first of which is the Masters in April.
The DP World Tour, which held the Dunhill, could be where he plies his trade in 2026. Koepka has plenty of history in Europe. He played on the Hotel Planner Tour (once the Challenge Tour) starting in 2012, and won the Challenge de Catalunya at Golf La Graiera that year, on the same day the US team surrendered a 10-6 lead to lose the Ryder Cup to Europe at Medinah.
He played on the Hotel Planner Tour 10 times that year, and made his European Tour debut (now the DP World Tour) in February 2013 at the Joburg Open. It wasn’t until October that year that he made his debut on the PGA Tour in a non-major event.
He won for the first time on the DP World Tour at the Turkish Airlines Open in 2014.
Koepka isn’t a member of the DP World Tour as he didn’t take up membership before the November 16 deadline. He would have to rely on invitations to compete this year, as he did in 2025, but as a five-time major champion with some stature, you’d think they wouldn’t be hard to come by.
30 minutes after LIV told us that Koepka would be leaving, the PGA Tour released this short statement:
“Brooks Koepka is a highly accomplished professional, and we wish him and his family continued success.
“The PGA Tour continues to offer the best professional golfers the most competitive, challenging and lucrative environment in which to pursue greatness.”
You might think the PGA Tour had this statement prepared with knowledge of Koepka’s decision, and the circuit on which he has won nine times would be the presumed next route in his career.
He lives in the same corner of Florida as many other PGA Tour stars with whom he is friends, including Rory McIlroy, who has softened his stance towards LIV Golfers such as Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.
Koepka hasn’t burned any bridges with the tour, if anything, he’s asserted he still has affection for it. The ex-PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan attended his wedding in the Turks and Caicos Islands shortly before he joined LIV.
Koepka isn’t a PGA Tour member anymore, and NCG understands that those who wish to make a return from LIV, being a member or non-member of the tour, they must wait a year from their most recent LIV appearance. This would mean Koepka must wait until August if he wants to frequent the US schedule again.
The tour’s guidelines also say that players looking to reinstate their membership would be subject to disciplinary action.
The coming months and years on the PGA Tour are full of intrigue, though. New CEO Brian Rolapp is keen to implement scarcity in the tour and create events that matter, coming from the world of the NFL, where all 17 gameweeks are of the utmost importance.
A streamlining of events and fields on the tour in years to come appears inevitable, and in 2026, the number of player memberships was reduced from 125 to 100.
Will Rolapp really make a star and modern legend like Koepka work for his stripes back, when his presence and résumé elevate any tournament he drops into?
If Koepka had stayed with LIV, he would have played in five events before the Masters, which begins on April 9. Right now, it appears he could head straight to Augusta National with no competitive reps, a venue where he came tied for second in 2019 and 2023 behind Tiger Woods and Jon Rahm, respectively.
He isn’t a stranger to the Asian Tour, either. In 2023, he played in Oman in the build-up to the Masters, but at the moment, the Asian Tour lists just two events in 2026: the Philippine President’s Trophy and the New Zealand Open, which are both in February (the latter ends on March 1).
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