The golfing realm is pretty much riled up at the moment. And one name that is dominating the headlines has been Brooks Koepka. Parting ways with LIV Golf, Koepka seemingly gave up his $100 million contract. Now that the announcement has been made, speculation over whether he will be allowed straight back into the PGA Tour has been circulating. And while that may be a possibility, golf insider Smylie Kaufman thinks that there is one particular reason why the PGA might not be able to allow Koepka to come back right away, even if they wanted to.

Speaking on the matter with co-host Charlie Hulme, Kaufman stated that it won’t be easy for the PGA Tour to make an exemption for Koepka. Especially when they had suspended Hudson Swafford for two years for an identical issue. And he was not alone. Wesley Bryan, too, got suspended by the PGA for a year.

“l’m interested in seeing how they’re going to navigate because a guy like Hudson Swafford apparently got like a two-year show cause and all this, couldn’t play. Wesley Bryan, you know, he’s got like a year suspension allegedly,” said Kaufman. “And so l just don’t see how they’re going to be able to finagle this to where they’re not going to get sued right back by whether it’s Wesley or Hudson on what their ruling was. So if they’ve already set the precedent that it’s a year suspension, then they probably have to keep it there.”

Surely, Kaufman has a point here. 

The PGA Tour might be getting tangled up in its own rules. Elaborating on the matter further, Kaufman also pointed out that the fans might feel that the tour might be in a position to say that, since they are the premier tour, they can make an exception. But as per Kaufman, that will come as an unfair and harsh message to all the other golfers who have been toiling in the league for so long. 

Kaufman also pondered the probable possibilities of how the Tour might incorporate Koepka into the proceedings. And one very interesting theory he came up with was that Koepka would have access to no equity.

“Player that comes back from LIV, would this be the president that said it’s like, okay, if you come back, that’s fine, but also you’re not getting any piece of the pie here in the equity. Maybe it’s that.”

Basically, a PGA Tour return isn’t happening anytime soon. The Tour has made it clear that any player coming back from LIV Golf has to sit out a full year after their last event that wasn’t PGA-approved. In Brooks Koepka’s case, that clock started on August 25, 2025. Because of that rule, he’s automatically out for all of the upcoming regular season.

The earliest window that even opens is next fall, which is why people are pointing to the PGA Tour’s fall events as the first realistic option. Until that one-year gap is fully done, there’s no shortcut and no exception.

Meanwhile, amidst all the back and forth, PGA Tour star Billy Horschel recently came up with a surprising take. 

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Billy Horschel sides with the idea of coming right back to the PGA

With the LIV Golf stars trying to come back to the PGA field, it is pretty normal for the PGA stars to feel angry. And very much on the same line, Billy Horschel, too, initially thought that the LIV golf stars must be given some strict punishment. But surprisingly, as time went by, he became more and more convinced that names like Brooks Koepka must be allowed to play on the PGA Tour.

“And now I’m on the side that I think for the betterment of the game, for the quality of the PGA Tour product to continue to grow,” Horschel said in an interview with The Mirror US. “Selfishly, having equity stake in the PGA Tour now, bringing Brooks back, that does add value. So I think there needs to be a process to figure out what (brings) these guys back.”

The Tour now faces a difficult choice: bend its own rules for a star player like Koepka, or uphold a precedent that could keep one of golf’s biggest names on the outside looking in.