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The future of LIV Golf is entirely uncertain at this point, with reports suggesting that the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) is looking to pull the plug on funding the circuit sooner rather than later. This would leave LIV players searching for a new home, and while it’s likely that the PGA Tour will welcome some back, that opportunity is unlikely to be presented to all.
Bryson DeChambeau is undoubtedly the most popular player on the LIV circuit, and the PGA Tour would benefit greatly by adding him back into the fold. Major champions Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith would fall into a similar category, with Tyrrell Hatton and Joaquin Niemann also adding high-level depth to the Tour.
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The Tour welcomed back five-time major champion Brooks Koepka to begin 2026, albeit with strict specifications, while Patrick Reed is set to return to the Tour in an official capacity this fall. Both players opted not to renew their contracts with LIV Golf.
Beyond that handful of names, it’s difficult to go through the LIV Golf roster and find another player that the Tour would potentially want to welcome back with (relatively) open arms.
Like the vast majority of golf fans and media members alike, former ESPN host Trey Wingo made it clear that he subscribes to the same idea.
During a recent sit-down with Awful Announcing, however, he took things a step further by specifically singling out Phil Mickelson.
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“I can promise you one person that you’ll never see in any way in an official capacity with the PGA Tour is Phil Mickelson. That bridge has been burned, detonated, destroyed, nuked, lasered to death. There is no building that bridge back,” Wingo explained.
Wingo certainly isn’t the first to deliver this opinion on Mickelson and his nonexistent future on the PGA Tour, but he may hold the crown for being the most descriptive while delivering it.
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Mickelson played a major role in getting LIV Golf up and running before the circuit’s inaugural event in 2022. As Wingo explained, the lefty burned every bridge he had built over the decades with the PGA Tour, and when you add that to the fact that he’s well beyond his prime, it’s incredibly hard to imagine Mickelson inside the ropes of a Tour event ever again.
This year has been a challenge off the golf course for Mickelson as he’s only played in one LIV event in 2026 while he deals with a family health matter that also forced him to miss out on the Masters earlier this month.
