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There’s nothing like losing another PGA Tour tournament sponsor to motivate the long-time men’s golf league to invite a few LIV golfers back this season.
The year 2022 saw PGA star Brooks Koepka among several big name PGA Tour players who accepted a reported $100 million signing bonus to join start-up LIV Golf.
He has won five times during his four seasons on the new golf tour and earned millions more in the process.
Brooks Koepka told the media in late December that he and LIV Golf had reached an agreement to release him from playing obligations during 2026. He wanted to “prioritize the needs of his family and stay closer to home”.
Koepka’s contract with LIV Golf was set to expire at the end of 2026.
The rationale given sounded quite noble. Koepka’s wife suffered a miscarriage in October during the fourth month of her second pregnancy. The couple already had a two-year old son at home.
The LIV Golf tour plays ten of its 14 tournaments this year outside of the United States. Brooks Koepka would have been away from his young family quite a bit in 2026.
Yes, this SOUNDED very noble – until Monday
Yesterday, the PGA Tour announced an agreement allowing Brooks Koepka to return to play on the PGA Tour later this month at the Farmers Invitational in San Diego.
My lovely wife and I speculated that, perhaps, Mrs. Koepka may have been ready to boot her husband out of the house after his relatively short sabbatical.
The PGA Tour’s announcement about the return of Brooks Koepka strangely coincides with recent news that Farmers Insurance is exiting as a 16-year title sponsor for the tour’s long-time event in San Diego.
The high cost of sponsoring pro golf tournaments has been taking a toll
Want to sponsor a PGA Tour event? The cost has been rapidly in recent years – even after the Tiger Woods era has effectively ended.
Sponsorship costs have nearly doubled in the past decade. A multi-year sponsorship agreement (usually for four or more years) will cost a company up to $20-25 million annually for a traditional spring or summer PGA Tour stop.
A $100 million investment in a men’s golf tournament sponsorship must pass muster with corporate board overseers who will expect to see results to justify the exceptional costs.
Don’t expect to see “The SwampSwamiSports.com Open” anytime soon!
The PGA Tour has not delivered enough positive results to a growing number of former tournament sponsors
Average television viewership for weekly PGA Tour events still brings nearly three million viewers – primarily on CBS. The network’s advertisers buy TV spots to woo professional golf’s wealthy male audience. High-dollar vehicles, investment firms and insurance companies dominate ads frequently seen on golf telecasts.
However, the 64-year old average age for pro golf’s television viewers is the oldest demographic in all of professional sports.
Compare that with NASCAR (58), baseball (57), NFL (50) and the NBA (42).
Ironically, younger viewers are much more likely to part with discretionary income than their graybeard dads with fatter wallets.
Watch any NFL game and notice the types of products being pitched to its viewers. Growing families purchase houses, furniture, automobiles, fast food, beverages, and recurring household goods.
That’s one reason why PGA Tour weekly telecasts seem to be waving their proverbial broadcast booth pom-poms for younger stars such as 36-year old Rory McIlroy, 29-year old Scottie Scheffler, and 32-year old Justin Thomas.
The men’s pro golf tour is desperate to find “the next Tiger Woods”. El Tigre has been sidelined in recent years with injuries and recently turned 50. He cannot prop-up the PGA Tour forever.
The rising price tag to host a PGA Tour stop may be indicative of fewer events in the future
San Diego’s long-time PGA Tour stop has been sponsored by Farmers Insurance for the past 16 years.
A press release by Farmers Insurance announced the end of the sponsorship recently stating, “The tournament has generated millions of dollars for charity and delighted golf fans in San Diego and beyond”.
Perhaps a more honest comment might have been, “But we haven’t received a significant enough return on our investment after spending $20 million to prop-up this rather expensive event annually”.
It’s not like Farmers Insurance is giving up on golf as an advertising vehicle.
The company recently posted a news release that Farmers has become a title sponsor for this winter’s second-year of TGL (Tomorrow’s Golf League).
TGL is a weekly televised indoor golf contest aired on ESPN.
A TGL spokesperson said, “Farmers Insurance recognizes the engagement that prime time team golf delivers with a wide spectrum of sports fans, especially younger fans.”
Traditional PGA tournament sponsors expect to see positive results
The loss of major male golf stars like Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Cam Smith and others to LIV Golf a few years ago really hurt the PGA Tour. Every tournament sponsor wants their event to feature a top field of golfers which excites local fans to come out and see.
The title sponsor is “sold” with the expectation that a significant national television audience will be watching from home.
That sponsor wants to see thousands of happy golf fans attending their event in person, too. This one-week golf tournament blitz is intended to capture the maximum positive name recognition today and some long-lasting goodwill associated with the company’s financial investment.
This spring’s Colonial golf event (currently known as the Charles Schwab Invitational) in Fort Worth wants patrons to plunk down $85 for a one-day pass in late May. North Texas golf fans want to see top golfers and popular regional favorites such as former University of Texas stars Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler in this year’s field.
However, the PGA Tour does not require a golfer to play in any particular weekly event (yet), so the field in Fort Worth is still rather uncertain. The upper echelon of PGA Tour golfers often decide to enter a particular event if played in a favorite geographic region or on a golf course which suits their game or which features significant prize money up for grabs.
The title sponsor of any particular PGA Tour event bears a significant financial risk if not enough of the top golfers elect not to play in their tournament. Fewer top stars at some events mean lower television ratings and a negative impact on tournament revenues.
Have the costs exceeded with the desired benefits for some PGA tournament sponsors?
Farmers Insurance is not the first major corporation to end a sponsorship of a PGA Tour event in recent years.
Wells Fargo walked away from its tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina last year. The year 2024 saw Honda Motor Company end its long-time association with a tournament in southeast Florida. Shriners Children’s Hospital walked away from its PGA event in 2023.
The PGA Tour’s competition with LIV Golf caused weekly money to balloon to nearly $8 million per tournament in recent years. These increased payouts to players has been passed along in the form of higher corporate sponsorship costs.
Some companies believe that the current costs outweigh the perceived benefits. The market is working.
A $3 billion life preserver was received by the PGA Tour just in time for the 2024 season
A unique partnership with private equity investor Strategic Sports Group provided the PGA Tour a massive cash infusion in January, 2024. This $3 billion investment was intended to halt the migration of top golfers to LIV Golf and provide a long-term financial backstop against potential operational losses on the PGA Tour.
Half of the new money ($1.5 billion) was set aside to pay for a new long-term incentive bonus plan to be paid to PGA Tour golfers. The players must remain on the tour for several years in order to collect their full bonus share. This would (theoretically) cause players to think twice about jumping to LIV Golf or any other golf tour.
Will the three other major LIV Golf stars take the bait and return to the PGA Tour?
Monday’s announcement by the PGA Tour to allow Brooks Koepka’s amnesty came along with a rather restrictive short-term offer to three other prominent (and young) LIV Golf stars. The PGA’s “Returning Member Program” would allow LIV golfers Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and Cam Smith a chance to return to the PGA Tour this season if they should agree to accept the terms by February 2.
Brooks Koepka (and the other three LIV golfers) will not be eligible for any FedEx bonus pool money in 2026. The golfer must play in 15 PGA Tour events in 2026. Koepka (and any other LIV golfers) will be excluded from the new PGA Tour bonus pool for the next five years. That might result in a potential future loss of up to $50 million per player.
Brooks Koepka also agreed to donate $5 million to charity as part of his “deal”. Expect the other three golfers to be required to pay at least that amount to charity.
LIV Golf’s youthful trio of DeChambeau, Rahm, and Smith still remain under contract with their employer to play this season.
They would have to quickly negotiate a buy-out for their LIV Golf contracts and then be fleeced again by the PGA Tour’s punitive terms and conditions.
I don’t expect the other three golfers to take the bait. Brooks Koepka had his own personal reasons to exit LIV Golf.
The others? Not so much – at least right now.
Does this signal the end for LIV Golf?
The Saudi Public Investment Fund is worth more than $1 trillion. That Saudi PIF doesn’t seem concerned that LIV Golf has become a multi-billion dollar money loser.
The loss of a few percentage points from this massive pile of cash is balanced by the Saudis’ perceived prestige as the owner of a worldwide golf tour.
I believe that the loss of Brooks Koepka represents a relatively small hit for LIV Golf. The five-time major champion was never very personable with fans and the media. He doesn’t move the “fan favorite” needle as much as Bryson DeChambeau, Spain’s Jon Rahm, or even Australian Cam Smith.
If DeChambeau, Rahm, and Smith follow suit and join Koepka to accept the PGA’s short-term “Come home” offer by February 2, worldwide interest in LIV Golf will plummet.
The 2026 LIV Golf schedule has only 14 golf tournaments. Ten will be played overseas with only four LIV Golf events to be played in the US this year.
One of the US tournaments will be played in New Orleans at Bayou Oaks in City Park from June 25-28.
Whose bad idea was that to schedule a golf tournament at that time of year in the Crescent City?
Those of us who have lived in New Orleans will confirm the oppressive late June heat and humidity in the city. Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf combine to create one of America’s hottest summer locations. It will punish the golfers far more than the layout at the renovated City Park golf course.
Conclusion
The PGA Tour now desperately wants their wealthy competitor (LIV Golf) to surrender soon.
LIV Golf is feeling no pressure to fold anytime soon.
The PGA Tour, though, has new private financial backers who may be quietly demanding executives to show improved profitability after the group’s $3 billion investment into the long-time men’s professional golf league.
Purses for men’s pro golf may have peaked due to competition from LIV Golf. The average PGA Tour golfer earned more than $2.2 million in 2025. They’ll somehow survive.
This is getting very interesting. Stay tuned!