As Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are battling for big bucks at this week’s 2026 BMW Championship, LIV Golf’s season finale is going down in Indianapolis after the original finale was canceled. The upstart league’s future is in serious doubt, and some of its players are readying escape plans.
Whether or not LIV’s biggest remaining stars — like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm — will be allowed to return to the PGA Tour is an open question.
McIlroy provided an unforgiving opinion on the matter during his Wednesday press conference ahead of the 2026 BMW Championship. McIlroy implied that the PGA Tour didn’t need LIV’s stars to come back. He did, though, admit that he expected them to return “eventually,” but that it would (and should) be a “tough, tough road back.”
Earlier in the day, Scheffler offered up a more diplomatic answer to the same question, with one important caveat.
When the topic of LIV’s uncertain future came up, Scheffler offered a balanced assessment of the potential for players like DeChambeau and Rahm to return to the Tour.
While McIlroy suggested those stars haven’t brought much value to LIV and therefore wouldn’t add value to the PGA Tour, Scheffler offered a different view.
The World No. 1 stated his belief that, while the PGA Tour’s depth in talent is “unmatched,” there are a few top LIV players who would benefit the Tour if allowed to return.
“Yeah, I think, like, when we talk about the best players, you know, LIV has a few players that are really good,” Scheffler said on Wednesday. “I think the depth that we have on our Tour is a bit unmatched, but I think when you look at the higher levels of LIV Golf there’s definitely some players that would provide a lot of value to the Tour, and guys that I love competing against as well.”
But Scheffler qualified that opinion by saying that there need to be “some sort of penalties” for those LIV stars should they want to play on the Tour again. However, Scheffler said he’d let PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp and others figure out what those penalties should be.
“So I think going forward there obviously has to be, I think, some sort of penalties. What those are, I’ll let Rolapp and all those guys figure it out,” Scheffler said. “We have great leadership within the Tour now. But I think having those guys come back and competing with whatever happens with LIV, whether those guys want to leave, I mean, you got to ask them.”
Ultimately, though, Scheffler argued that the best thing for the Tour is to have all the best players competing against each other, and he’s looking forward to playing against LIV’s stars more often in the future.
“I think for me being able to compete against the best players in the world there’s certainly some guys on that Tour that can compete out here,” Scheffler said, “and I look forward to the chance to compete with them more often.”
The post ‘Definitely some players’: Scottie Scheffler open to some LIV stars returning to PGA Tour appeared first on Golf.
