DP World Tour clears the way for LIV players’ return, family joy in Oban, spotting Fox errors, and Fleetwood’s new look. The Back Nine.
Brooks Koepka has survived his first week back on the PGA Tour with dignity. T56 at Justin Rose’s victory at the Farmers Insurance Open wasn’t a spectacle, but in this case, the journey was the goal. Koepka began with a 73 (+1), shot 68 in round two to make the cut, and finished the weekend at Torrey Pines with scores of 73 and 70. Mission accomplished. By Friday, after making the cut, the five-time major winner said he had fallen in love with the game again. That’s what he missed at LIV: competition, the tough fight, battling for every three-meter putt even when 20 strokes behind the lead. Every shot matters, especially when hundreds of players share the same goal.
Elsewhere, the critics remained vocal about Koepka’s comeback, which some consider too easy and smooth—not just Wyndham Clark. Before the Farmers, Hideki Matsuyama spoke unusually candidly in an interview with Golf Digest Japan. Given his typically polite demeanor, one might say the 2021 Masters Champion is furious.
He said he was shocked when he heard of the LIV star’s return. Matsuyama, who rejected a nine-figure offer from that competing circuit in 2022 partly due to future PGA Tour implications, said, \”I thought: How can he just come back like that? What happened to the idea that players who joined LIV must sit out PGA Tour events for a year? Now there’s a Returning Member Program?\”
\”I have nothing against Koepka. I actually find it quite impressive that Brooks had the courage to make that decision and cancel his LIV contract.\”
Hideki Matsuyama
Matsuyama said he was unaware of such a rule and questioned why the