Former LIV golfer, Hudson Swafford claims he is suspended from the PGA Tour until 2027 and believes the date was set to coincide with a potential unification of sorts between the game's biggest stars.
Swafford departed the PGA Tour ahead of LIV's inaugural competition in 2022 and signed a multi-year contract before being relegated from the PIF-backed circuit as a wildcard in 2024. In his first season, he played five events without permission to compete in a conflicting event.
However, while other players - such as James Piot and Laurie Canter - have been able to serve a one-year suspension since their most recent LIV start before teeing it up at a PGA Tour event once more, the University of Georgia alumnus says his situation is different.
Swafford - who has been working in real estate but has not closed the door on returning to pro golf - acknowledged he always knew there would be some form of punishment for his decision to leave the PGA Tour but suggested his unusual return date must rely on other factors.
Speaking on the SubPar podcast, he suggested that his circumstances are being affected by the door being left open for players like Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka to come back over once their initial LIV deals end after 2026.
Swafford said: “We knew there would be some repercussions. I knew I’d be suspended for a little while. Didn’t know how long. There were definitely some unknowns there, but I didn’t think [the pro game] would be this fractured this long, to be honest with you. I don’t think any of us did.
"I've had some good back and forth with the PGA Tour, but then some wishy-washy. It’s still not set in stone. They've said I'm suspended until [January} 2027, which I know they’re basing that on a couple [LIV] players' contracts being up after the ’26 season, so then they can kind of change rules in favor of everybody coming back.
“I know some guys who didn’t have any status on the PGA Tour, it’s a hard one-year [suspension] in terms of no PGA Tour-sanctioned events, but then you can come back and play. But, problem is, if I come in and talk to them, it’s like, ‘OK, I can come back and play in ’27, but what does ’27 on the PGA Tour really look like?’
“Is it no more opposite field events? They’re already reducing fields. So I would go ahead and bet and say that the past champions category is pretty much done going forward after this year. We can agree or disagree, but it just seems like that and they’ve kind of told me that.
“I don’t know how you can come up with a five or five-and-a-half year suspension based on I played five events while the PGA Tour season was going on in ’22 that I wasn’t able to get [conflicting-event] released for. So they're giving me a year for each of those - that's how they came up with '27."
Swafford won his third PGA Tour title at the 2022 American Express
Swafford admitted he had no qualms about his relegation from the 54-hole league after underwhelming play during 2024 followed on from right hip surgery which had threatened to derail his career on the PGA Tour in 2022.
The three-time PGA Tour winner shared he still loves golf and may return one day, whether that be through Q-School or by Monday qualifying into an event and achieving a notable result which would significantly boost his OWGR.
The 37-year-old is currently ranked outside of the world's top-2,400 as a result of going largely without world-ranking points for over three years - a timeframe he says could easily have been much shorter if LIV had made one simple change.
Swafford revealed that - during a conversation with former OWGR chairman, Peter Dawson at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship - he was told of a simple fix that would have gone a long way to achieving a successful OWGR bid by LIV.
PIF chairman, Yasir Al-Rumayyan (left) and former OWGR chairman, Peter Dawson
Asked about LIV's OWGR application withdrawal (a decision that Scott O'Neil recently announced had been reversed), the Florida-born pro said: “I couldn’t believe it when we went into a whole player meeting and they’re like, ‘yeah, we’re just withdrawing our application.’
"I’m like, ‘Why? You’re just giving up?’ I mean, we came over here on the consensus that you were going to fight for us no matter what. And then we just throw our hands up like ‘oh well, we didn’t get it.’ And it’s like, no, that’s kind of bull***t.”
"I had some great talks with Peter Dawson a couple of years ago at the Dunhill [Links Championship]. I played nine holes in a practice round with him. He said that he would love to give LIV world-ranking points.
Peter Dawson
"We were talking about the turnover and the cut being at 24, that was half the guys at the time, he goes 'I think that's kind of harsh. I don't even need to see that kind of turnover.' He was talking about maybe 35 or 38 guys keep their card, but that's a hard cut. If you're not there, you get relegated and you're out. You go to the Q-School.
"He said that if we had a definitive turnover and we knew that, and we knew that guys weren't getting hand-picked to be on LIV because they were with the right agency, that kind of took away some credibility.
"He said 'if there was a true cut-off and everybody abided by those rules and you had to go to like a Q-School, then the talks would be real.' He said 'LIV is not personally for me' because he's a traditional golf guy, but he goes 'I love that there's new competition and that it's travelling around the world.'
"He liked all those components and he wanted to give world-ranking points, but I don't know what was said - because I wasn't in those meetings - but it just seems like things could have changed to get those world-ranking points."
Watch the full interview with SubPar here
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.