LIV Golf: What next for Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau? The routes back to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour

The futures of some of the world's best golfers, including Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, have been thrust into uncertainty after Thursday's announcement that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) will end its funding of LIV Golf at the end of the 2026 season.

It means that the breakaway tour, which fractured men's professional golf upon its inception in 2021, is now scrambling to find new investors to ensure the league can continue to operate.

Doubts have arisen about who would want to invest in LIV given the league's huge outgoings, burning through around $100m (£73.5m) per month.

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Sky Sports understands that amid the uncertainty, multiple LIV players have sounded out the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour about being reinstated.

Welcoming golfers back would be a complicated process for both tours; each player's return would need to be handled on a case-by-case basis, with the interests of the members who stayed loyal to the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour at the forefront of their deliberations.

Players can be grouped into four categories based on their standing in the game. There are the 'blue-chip' stars, the 'bridge burners', the DP World Tour's eight, and the 'rank-and-file' players. They are likely to play out the remaining seven events of the LIV Season before cancelling their contracts and returning to the regular tours.

But how easy will it be for those players to return to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour?

Blue-chip players

DeChambeau, Rahm and Cameron Smith are LIV Golf's marquee players. They are all major champions and have a combined 52 professional victories between them. It is no surprise that LIV threw the chequebook at them to lure them away from the PGA Tour, but now they represent a hugely attractive coup for the American circuit.

The PGA Tour's desire to have the best players competing on the American circuit is no secret, with commissioner Brian Rolapp having offered Rahm, Smith, DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka, the chance to rejoin the tour earlier in the year via the Returning Member Programme.

It was a one-time-only offer, available to players who had won a major title in the last four years. Koepka was the only player to accept the deal and returned to play on the PGA Tour in January, while Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith all chose to fulfil their LIV contracts.

As part of the Returning Member Programme, Koepka was required to pay $5m (£3.6m) to charity and will forfeit any player equity shares for the next five years.

"Brooks Koepka took advantage of that deal; the others did not. DeChambeau is one of the players who sued the PGA Tour. Those players are going to find it a little bit trickier," Sky Sports golf correspondent Jamie Weir said.

"But they do benefit the PGA Tour as well. So it will be very interesting to see what happens with Rahm and DeChambeau, who are LIV's two best players, two big stars and major champions."

Hypothetically, the PGA Tour could offer DeChambeau, Rahm and Smith a similar deal to the one Koepka has benefited from, but there are some sticking points.

DeChambeau and LIV lawsuit

DeChambeau, whose LIV contract runs out at the end of the 2026 season, is in the process of negotiating a new contract with the breakaway league and was reportedly looking for an eye-watering fee of around $500m (£367m) to stay. Given its precarious financial situation, it is unlikely now that LIV will be able to meet his demands.

The American could seek a return to the PGA Tour, but his relationship with the US circuit has soured since joining LIV, after DeChambeau became part of an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour.

He was one of 11 LIV players to join the lawsuit, which alleged the PGA Tour had deployed "anti-competitive" practices when it banned players who joined the rebel tour. The case was later dropped.

The conditions for DeChambeau's return would likely be punitive. But the American could be ambivalent about re-joining the PGA Tour, given his rise to stardom on YouTube. He may look to further that venture before returning to professional golf.

"They took hundreds of millions of dollars to go and play," Brandel Chamblee told The Golf Channel. "Isn't it ironic that they're all going to have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to come back and play on the PGA Tour. I realise that fans say they want to see these players. But they're going to have to pay these fines to come back."

Rahm and the DP World Tour

Rahm's future on the European Ryder Cup team was thrust into doubt earlier this year, after he refused to pay fines to the DP World Tour, which were imposed on him after he chose to play on the LIV tour without permission. The Spaniard appealed the sanctions but later dropped them and accused the DP World Tour of "extorting" players.

The fines were reported to be approximately $3m (£2.2m), with Rahm still hopeful that an agreement between himself and the DP World Tour can be reached. In any event, should he wish to play on the circuit again, he would need to satisfy that penalty first.

"Rahm is unwilling to pay those fines to play on the DP World Tour," Chamblee said. "Well, how do you think he's going to get back onto the PGA Tour? He's going to have to pay some significant fines, far more than he's being asked to pay for the DP World Tour."

Players who burned bridges

Golf's civil war ignited fierce rivalries among its top players, and Phil Mickelson was one who found himself at the centre of those arguments.

Having initially said he would not join the breakaway league, branding the PIF "scary motherf*****s", the six-time major champion sensationally backflipped and joined LIV, playing in its inaugural event in London in 2022.

He became an unofficial spokesperson for LIV, notably accusing the PGA Tour of "obnoxious greed" over a discussion of player media rights. His digs and involvement in the antitrust lawsuit against LIV Golf ultimately embittered his relationship with the PGA Tour.

"I think we can say it with some certainty that we will never see Phil Mickelson on the PGA Tour again," Weir said.

"As one American commentator [Trey Wingo] put it yesterday, 'that bridge has been burned, detonated and destroyed'."

Mickelson, 55, is one of several elder players on LIV who could also opt not to return to the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour.

The likes of Ian Poulter, 50, and Lee Westwood, 53, could decide to step away from golf altogether or sign up to play on one of the legends circuits.

Weir said: "You have some players like Mickelson, Westwood and Poulter all in their 50s - I'd also throw Dustin Johnson (41) in there too, maybe he's a little bit younger - but players who are multi-millionaires and might just decide, 'I'm kind of done with professional golf. Now is the time to ride off into the sunset. Do I really need the grind of tour golf week in week out?'"

In any event, Mickelson will be able to return to play at The Masters and the PGA Championship for the rest of his life, while he can also return to play at The Open for the next five years, after winning the Claret Jug in 2013.

Tyrrell Hatton and the DP World Tour eight

In March, Tyrrell Hatton led a group of eight players granted conditional releases to play on the DP World Tour after they paid fines levied for breaching the tour's rules by playing in LIV events.

The fines for each player totalled out at around $3.41m (£2.5m), and they will now retain their membership status.

The players included Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Tom McKibbin, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie, but Rahm is still disputing the matter with the tour.

It is likely that these players will seek out a return to the PGA Tour in a similar way to Patrick Reed.

The American left LIV Golf at the beginning of the year and returned to the DP World Tour using his Honorary Life Membership, which he earned when he won The Masters in 2018. He has won twice on the European circuit in 2026 already, propelling himself to the top of the Race to Dubai rankings.

The top-10 players in the rankings gain PGA Tour cards for the following season, with Reed set to play on the PGA Tour again next year.

McKibbin, who grew up playing golf at the Holywood Golf Club in Northern Ireland - the same club as Rory McIlroy - is perhaps, alongside Hatton, the most interesting case in that group. He is currently playing at the DP World Tour's Turkish Airlines Open, but was advised by McIlroy in 2025 not to take the LIV cash and join the rebel league.

McIlroy was left "disappointed" by the move, adding, "I feel like he's giving up a lot to not really benefit that much." He won a PGA Tour card in 2024, an achievement he described as a "massive goal", but will now have to qualify all over again.

Rank-and-file players

The final tranche of players are those who Sky Sports golf correspondent Weir has called the "rank and file players" - those who would not necessarily grab the attention of an audience or help improve the product of the tours.

"These players, to be quite honest, the PGA Tour don't miss that much; they don't really need them to benefit their product," Weir said.

"They don't put bums on seats. They don't bring eyeballs to the game; they are going to find the path back a little bit tougher."

For example, players like Jason Kokrak, Matthew Wolff and Marc Leishman could all find it difficult to return to the main tours.

There are only a finite number of cards available on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, and should a player not have won membership, it is likely they will have to qualify through the DP World Tour's feeder tour, the Hotel Planner Tour.

For the PGA Tour, players will likely have to earn their spot via the Korn Ferry Tour.

"Clearly the pathway back isn't going to be straightforward for a lot of the players, the PGA Tour know that they have them over a barrel now," Weir said.

"A lot of these players have been very stubborn and have dug their heels in but they will need to swallow some humble pie if they are to return."

"Is this the end of LIV? Not definitely, but probably. It's going to be very interesting to see where these players go next."

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(c) Sky Sports 2026: LIV Golf: What next for Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau? The routes back to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour