AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tom Watson took part in the ceremonial start to the Masters on Thursday morning, then quickly turned the spotlight away from the tradition and onto Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour. Watson, 76, hit a drive off the first hole with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player before criticizing the Tour’s handling of the two-time Masters winner’s comeback.
The eight-time major winner said the PGA Tour “made a decision to renege on what they promised when the players left for LIV,” and added that he believed the Saudi-backed league’s defectors were supposed to be barred for life. Koepka, who played with the LIV Golf League for the last four years, returned under the Tour’s Returning Member Program, a pathway offered only to players who had won major championships from 2022 to 2025.
The program was built for Koepka, Cam Smith, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, but it came with limits that show how carefully the Tour is trying to manage the reunion. Koepka had to pay a $5 million fine that went to various charities, cannot accept sponsor invites to signature events and is blocked from the player equity program for five years.
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Watson’s criticism landed at Augusta during Masters week, where the sport’s old guard is once again sharing the stage with the players who broke away. The Tour’s offer to returning LIV players included both financial punishment and restrictions on access, a compromise that reflects the reality of a fractured game after years of public conflict.
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But Watson left no doubt that he thinks the Tour went too far in softening its stance. If he were commissioner, he said, LIV players who wanted back would first have to play the Korn Ferry Tour for one year to qualify for the PGA Tour again. For Watson, the issue is not just Koepka’s return. It is whether the Tour has now written a new ending to a promise it once made to the players who left.
