Bryson DeChambeau outlines path to returning to PGA Tour

It’s been one of the burning questions ever since a prospective deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund was announced.

How can the PGA Tour coexist with the LIV Golf League?

As it stands, golfers who join the Saudi-funded enterprise are indefinitely banned from the US circuit.

But in the shock June 6 announcement, both parties pledged to “establish a fair and objective process” for blacklisted players who are keen to reapply for membership on the traditional tours.

So, as the opposing factions aim to strike a full agreement before the self-imposed December 31, attention has turned to how LIV players could be re-integrated into their old domain.

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Bryson DeChambeau, who became one of LIV’s first big signings last June, has a few ideas about that could work.

Speaking on The Rick Shiels Golf Show podcast, DeChambeau earmarked the PGA Tour’s newly-created ‘Signature Events’ as a way of folding LIV’s team element into the circuit.

“What I could see is LIV integrating into the signature series on the PGA Tour in some capacity and having two championships in one, where you have the individual component in the signature series, and you have the team side of it,” he said.

“You have the teams you’re playing for, so no matter what on that final day that guy that’s playing really bad still matters, it’s still a big deal on the team championship aspect of the tournament.

“Then you guys have the individual side that’s still competing for that individual title the way it is currently.”

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DeChambeau is convinced LIV players deserve to be on show at these high-profile tournaments.

“We want to be mainstream,” he said. “We believe we should be mainstream, we have some of the best golfers in the world that should be highlighted at these events.

“That would be my blue sky scenario where we integrate, we figure out how to make it all mutually be beneficial and we play for the legacy that’s there with a new idea and concept on top.”

The 2020 US Open champion has also stressed to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan that uniting is the only way forward for the two tours.

“I think the game eventually needs to come back together,” DeChambeau said.

“I’ve said it from day one when I went over and there’s numerous times where I talked to Jay about it, I was like, ‘this all has to work out in the end for the good of the game, this can’t just be for the PGA Tour or for LIV. The fans have got to win here’.”

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.