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The re-assimilation of LIV Golf players back to the PGA Tour remains a huge bone of contention in the men’s professional game’s enduring divide.

Those who jumped ship for the breakaway LIV league are indefinitely suspended from competing on the US circuit, meaning a split talent pool meet only four times a year at the majors.

Lanny Wadkins, the 21-time PGA Tour winner and former Golf Channel lead analyst, is among the many observants who want to see that change.

Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka have both admitted that they miss some PGA Tour events – and the 1977 PGA Championship winner Wadkins name-checked the duo, as well as fellow multiple major champion Bryson DeChambeau when discussing how the players could come together.

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“I would like to see Jon Rahm and Koepka and DeChambeau play more often,” Wadkins said during a brief appearance back on the Golf Channel.

“That would be nice. But there’s also got to be repercussions.”

Wadkins is of the belief that LIV players can’t have their cake and eat it.

“I don’t think you can just go to LIV, take $100m and walk back in and expect to have the same status you’ve always had on this tour,” he said.

“That’s not fair to the guys who supported the tour and have been here the whole time.”

What those repercussions are, of course, is where the difficulty lies.

“Whether it’s fines, suspensions,” the American added, “whatever for it to work and I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. Good luck to the guys trying.”

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Rory McIlroy, however, has an entirely different view to Wadkins.

The new Masters champion, who has softened his stance on LIV significantly in recent months in the interests of a unified sport, claimed in January that the league’s players should not be punished on their return to the PGA Tour.

“I think life is about choices,” he said before his first victory of the 2025 season at Pebble Beach.

“Guys made choices to go and play LIV, guys made choices to stay here. If people still have eligibility on this tour and they want to come back and play or you want to try and do something, let them come back.

“I think it’s hard to punish people. I don’t think there should be a punishment.

“Obviously I’ve changed my tune on that because I see where golf is and I see that having a diminished PGA Tour and having a diminished LIV Tour or anything else is bad for both parties.

“It would be much better being together and moving forward together for the good of the game.”