Brooks Koepka casts doubt over LIV future

Brooks Koepka has cast further doubt over his future at LIV Golf after failing to deny claims that he is ready to return to the PGA Tour. 

Speculation has long swirled that five-time major champion Koepka, who joined the Saudi-backed LIV league in a $100million deal three years ago, could be seeking a move back to his old domain.

Fred Couples fanned the flames earlier this month when addressing Koepka’s uncertain future. “He wants to come back,” the former Masters champion told the American radio station KJR 93.3 FM. “I will say that I believe he really wants to come back and play the tour.”

Couples’ comments were later branded a “low class jerk move” by Phil Mickelson in a deleted X post.

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Koepka was asked ahead in Singapore ahead of this week’s LIV event to clear up the speculation in what would have been an easy opportunity to pledge his long-term future to the breakaway tour.

Instead, he was intriguingly noncommittal.

“Yeah, Fred texted me after, I guess, the comments came out,” Koepka said. “I don’t know when it was. Sometime last week. Yeah, everybody seems to have their own opinion and no one asks me.

“I talked to Fred quite a bit, but we don’t go too much into detail about what’s going on. Like I’ve said before, I’m not in those rooms. I’ve got a contract obligation out here to fulfill, and then we’ll see what happens.

“I don’t know where I’m going, so I don’t know how everybody else does. Right now I’m just focused on how do I play better, how do I play better in the majors, how does this team win, and then we’ll figure out next year and how to play better again.

“It’s the same thing. It’s just a revolving cycle. I’ve got nothing. Everybody else seems to know more than I do.”

At the 2023 Masters, Koepka conceded his decision to join LIV Golf would have been more challenging if he had not been blighted by a knee injury and was as fit as he was today.

“Look, I’ll be honest with you – I signed for the dough,” he later told the ‘BS with Jake Paul’ podcast. “I’m 100% behind that. I don’t know if tomorrow I’ll get in a car accident and never play golf again but my family is taken care of.

LIV’s refusal not to disclose the length of contracts handed out to their players has added further uncertainty over the long-term future of their biggest names. It is unclear, for example, when Koepka’s lucrative multi-year deal ends with the circuit.

As it stands, LIV golfers are banned from returning to the PGA Tour, but commissioner Jay Monahan said in his annual address at The PLAYERS that efforts are still being made to integrate the two tours.

“As part of our negotiations, we believe there’s room to integrate important aspects of LIV Golf into the PGA Tour platform,” he said. “We’re doing everything that we can to bring the two sides together.”

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.