Topline
Patrick Reed, one of the highest-profile golfers in LIV Golf, is leaving the Saudi-backed league and will eventually return to the PGA Tour, he said Wednesday, after earning an estimated $40 million in his four years golfing with LIV.
Patrick Reed poses for a photo with the individual champion trophy on day three of LIV Golf Dallas on June 29, 2025.
Getty Images
Key Facts
Reed will be eligible to reapply as a full member of the PGA Tour in 2027, which he’s indicated he’ll do, after having resigned his Tour card in 2022.
Reed will compete on the DP World Tour for the rest of this season while he serves a one-year suspension from the PGA Tour for competing in unauthorized events, backdated to when the 2025 LIV Golf season finished.
He will be allowed to compete on the PGA Tour again as a nonmember after the suspension is over in August, but isn’t eligible to reapply as a full member until 2027.
Reed won one individual title while playing with LIV at the league’s Dallas event last year, and on Sunday won the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic.
Dozens of players left the PGA after they were offered massive deals by LIV Golf, which is financed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, but Reed and five-time major champion Brooks Koepka are the only top players who’ve announced returns to the PGA.
Koepka, the first to work out a deal with the PGA as a reverse defector, this week is playing his first Tour event since returning, at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego.
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Crucial Quote
“I’m a traditionalist at heart, and I was born to play on the PGA TOUR, which is where my story began with my wife, Justine,” Reed said in his statement Wednesday. “Over the last four years, I have learned a lot about myself, about who I am and who I am not, and for that I am forever grateful.”
Big Number
$40,709,215. That’s how much Reed earned in his four years with LIV, according to Spotrac, more than he earned in the previous 11 years of his career combined. Koepka is estimated to have earned $46 million in his time with LIV.
Key Background
LIV Golf was launched in 2021 under former golf No. 1 Greg Norman, who left his role of CEO after his contract expired last year. The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the majority stakeholder of LIV Golf, quickly lured away some of the former top stars on the PGA Tour by offering them massive deals, including Koepka, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith. A quick line in the sand was drawn by the PGA Tour, when it suspended or told more than a dozen players who participated in LIV’s first tournament they were ineligible to compete in future PGA events. PGA officials spent the next year warning players to distance themselves from the Saudi league, and then stunned the sports world by announcing the two rivals would partner to create a new, for-profit entity. The two still haven’t combined, and PGA golfer Rory McIlroy last spring said the merger “doesn’t feel” any closer to becoming reality.
Forbes Valuation
Rahm, the world’s highest-paid golfer in 2025, according to Forbes estimates, joined LIV in 2024. He’s estimated to have made $102 million last year. The other four of the top five highest-earning golfers (Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy, Tiger Woods and Collin Morikawa) are all playing on the PGA Tour. Koepka and Reed did not make the earnings top 10.