Are Brooks Koepka's PGA Tour Sanctions Tough Enough?

Brooks Koepka has made an immediate return to the PGA Tour after leaving LIV Golf last month thanks to the newly introduced Returning Member Program.

The scheme is open to Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith until February 2nd as Major or Players Championship winners between 2022-2025 who have spent two years away from the Tour.

The PGA Tour has usually given anyone who has teed it up in a LIV Golf event a 12-month suspension since their last start in the PIF-backed league but exceptions have been made for the big names due to new CEO Brian Rolapp's mission to deliver for fans.

Fans told the Tour in surveys that their number one wish was to see the best face the best, so having Koepka back so soon is a huge win for the PGA Tour, which can expect higher ratings and buzz initially before the potential of Koepka returning to the winner's circle at some point.

And while the five-time Major winner has managed to get out of his LIV contract and return straight away, he has had to pay some fairly hefty sanctions. But have they gone far enough?

What sanctions has Brooks Koepka faced to rejoin the PGA Tour?

The largest sanction imposed on Brooks Koepka via the new Returning Member Program is to block him from the PGA Tour Player Equity Program until 2031.

The program was created following SSG's $1.5bn investment in the Tour and has seen players take a share in the legacy US circuit. The PGA Tour estimates the returning former World No.1 is set to miss out on anywhere in the region of $50m-$85m.

He has also been made to donate $5m to charity and is not eligible for any FedEx Cup bonuses this season.

Koepka must play a minimum of 15 events and will be allowed to play in The Players Championship.

He will be allowed to play in the nine $20m Signature Events, but only if he qualifies for them off of his own back via the Aon Next 10, Aon Swing 5, winning a tournament or reaching the world's top 30. He will not be allowed any sponsor's invites into them.

All of these are heavy sanctions that will reduce his earning power vs his PGA Tour peers, and crucially he will not take any member's spot this year.

An extra player, or players if tee times don't match in twos or threes, will be added to fields he is in and he also won't take someone's spot if he makes the FedEx Cup Playoffs as the next player will be added in, too.

Are Brooks Koepka's sanctions strong enough?

The PGA Tour look to have got the sanctions spot on and they will be popular or at least acceptable by the majority of the membership, who have equity in the circuit so stand to gain by any growth Koepka creates from rejoining.

Some may feel Koepka has got off lightly and the Player Equity Program numbers quoted are unrealistic.

He is also back onto a PGA Tour that has significantly higher prize pools than the one he left in 2022, and he is forced to play 15 events which still means 15 chances to earn big money.

He could quite easily play his way into the $20m Signature Events, too, so is still on course to earn multi-millions this year.

Whether he has had to buy himself out of his reported $125m LIV Golf contract he signed back in 2022 is unknown, but he surely will have had to give some back, forfeit his final season earnings or pay some kind of exit fee considering it ran until the end of 2026.

I feel the sanctions imposed are strong enough, and believe this is a real win for Brian Rolapp. He came in promising 'aggressive' changes to make the PGA Tour better for fans and his first key move has been one of a strong leader. It's hard to believe this new program could have been created under Jay Monahan's leadership.

Do you agree? Or do you think Koepka should be suspended for 12-months or faced even tougher sanctions? Let me know in the comments section below.

Whether it is worth $50m-$85m is unknown but Koepka not being part of the equity scheme is a strong punishment on its own, so blocking him from sponsor's invites and FedEx Cup money as well as making a $5m charitable donation on top of that is fair.

And let's not forget the other consequences he has paid since joining LIV Golf, as Rory McIlroy recently pointed out when he said he'd be happy to have him back.

"I think they've already paid their consequence," McIlroy said on LIV players returning to the tour.

"They've made the money but paid their consequence in terms of you talk about the reputation and some of the things they've lost by going over there."

Koepka has dropped to 244th in the world having been a top-20 player when he left four years ago.

He was hardly considered for the 2025 US Ryder Cup team, having only been able to earn Ryder Cup points in Majors, and was also ineligible for the 2022 and 2024 Presidents Cup teams.

He hasn't been able to play in his hometown event, the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches (formerly the Honda Classic), since leaving as well as all of the other big PGA Tour events like The Players Championship, Signature Events and the WM Phoenix Open, which he has won twice.

He has also missed out on at least the first season of TGL, which is based locally to him and would likely have paid him more fortunes.

So while only $5m has actually come out of his bank balance so far, he is set to miss out on significant earnings and has paid plenty of consequences for taking nine-figures from LIV Golf and leaving the PGA Tour.

I think the Returning Member Program has struck a very good balance. Do you agree or disagree? Let me know below.