PONTE VEDRA BEACH — PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp could not have been more dismissive of LIV Golf during his State of the PGA Tour press conference the day before the start of The Players Championship.
Rolapp made it clear he’s not interested in future talks with LIV and CEO Scott O’Neil, or allowing LIV players entry into The Players Championship, or if he even cares other LIV Golfers will follow Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed back to the PGA Tour.
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“That’s not sort of a priority I’ve put on my list,” Rolapp said when asked about LIV Golfers gaining status for The Players. “So that’s not something I’ve sort of considered to date. There’s other priorities other than that.”
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A tone unlike that of his predecessor, commissioner Jay Monahan, who agreed to two meetings between the two sides in February 2024 with President Donald Trump at the White House. Those meetings, though, are the last two between the two sides.
Until then, Monahan was optimistic a deal would be beneficial to the PGA Tour. That confidence started eroding after the White House meetings.
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Now Rolapp’s opinion of LIV could not be lower.
“I think I’ve been clear about this, my brief is to make the PGA Tour better,” he said.
Rolapp made Koepka’s return to the Tour possible with the Returning Member Program, which he created to allow Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith to return.
The deal had a small window and none of the other three took the offer.
“We created a very short-term program that applied to Brooks or anyone who may have been in his similar situation,” Rolapp said. “Turns out others were not. We were very explicit that that was a one-time situational Returning Member Program, and I stand by that.
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“I don’t know the contractual relationship or the terms of others on the LIV Tour, and they have contracts and those should be honored. But we do have a pathway. Patrick Reed is clearly taking advantage of that pathway. I think the LIV players know what those pathways are, and until they change, those are the pathways.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp dismisses LIV Golf’s future
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