Brooks Koepka left LIV Golf for PGA Tour. Here's why family was the key

• Five-time major champion Brooks Koepka has rejoined the PGA Tour after leaving the Saudi-financed LIV Golf league.
• Since returning, Koepka has struggled with his putting and has had mixed results in his first few tournaments.
• The golfer's return has reportedly boosted television viewership and ticket interest for PGA Tour events.

Brooks Koepka is a five-time major champion. He spent 47 weeks as the top-ranked golfer in the world. For a two-year period, he was the most dominant, and for some, most feared golfer in the world.

And, yet, during the last three years his reputation and legacy were being questioned — some would say tarnished — while crisscrossing the world after defecting from the PGA Tour to join Saudi Arabia-financed LIV Golf.

But all of that was secondary when the greatest golfer ever born and raised in Palm Beach County last month made a career-altering decision to break away from LIV and rejoin the tour he had been a member of since 2012 and forged a career that will include a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Koepka was clear at his initial news conference after being reinstated to the PGA Tour through its one-time Returning Member Program about what he missed most while away from the place where he made his bones.

And it had nothing to do with golf.

"Just my family," Koepka said before his return at the Farmers Insurance Open outside of San Diego. "A lot's gone on over the past five, six months with my family. That played a big role into coming back … The ability to have my family out there all the time."

Brooks Koepka will be welcomed back to hometown PGA Tour event

Koepka, 35, was born in Palm Beach County, raised in Wellington, attended Cardinal Newman High School and has settled in Jupiter.

And he's always had a soft spot for his hometown PGA Tour event.

Days after it was announced Koepka was returning to the PGA Tour, he joined the field for the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches. Koepka returns to the tournament held at PGA National after a three-year absence while playing for LIV. He played in the event seven times from 2014 to 2022, only missing it when he was injured.

Koepka's best finish was a tie for second in 2019, one shot behind Keith Mitchell.

"More than anything, to me, it means that one of the biggest names in the game values his hometown, values this course, values the community," Cognizant executive director Todd Fleming said. "He wants to use this as part of his reintegration and what a better way to do it than in his hometown."

Koepka pocketed around $150 million from LIV between his contract to join the league and prize money. But the biggest change in his life occurred about a month before his LIV debut when Koepka married Jena Sims and about a year later when the couple welcomed their first child, Crew Sims Koepka.

"When you become a dad, your perspective changes," said Bob Koepka, Brooks' father who lives in Atlantis.

Brooks referenced conversations with his family and team before making the decision to return to the PGA Tour. Part of that surely was driven by the heartbreak he and Jena experienced losing their unborn child. On Oct. 6, Jena shared on social media that the couple's second child's heart stopped beating at 16 weeks. "We are devastated, but remain hopeful to give Crew a sibling one day," she wrote.

"He wanted to be closer to home," Bob said. "He's got a son, it's not going to be long before he's in first grade. He wants to be able to spend time with him and have him come out and see him play."

One of the talking points for LIV golfers who made the move from the PGA Tour was joining the rival league would provide them more family time. But while LIV's schedule includes just 14 events, more than half are international. The travel is way more demanding than playing on the PGA Tour.

LIV now has started calling itself the "world's golf league."

"If anything ever happened, it takes him a day, day and a half, to get back," Bob said. "I think when he started looking at everything they just realized he wanted to be back here."

And the family took advantage right away with Jena and Crew accompanying Brooks to Torrey Pines for the Farmers.

"It was great, it was great,” Brooks said after his second round. "I don’t know the last time I’ve actually made a cut and they’ve still been there. It was nice to have them out there. It felt good. My son doesn’t really know what’s going on, but it’s cool for me to have them here."

Koepka hoping to figure out what's wrong with putting

Koepka's return has yielded mixed results. He made that cut at Farmers before finishing tied for 56th. A week later, he missed the cut at the Phoenix Open after an opening-round 75.

Cognizant will be his third event of the season.

The biggest issue is his putting. He finished last in putting at the Farmers and is next to last overall out of 179 players this season.

Koepka switched from a Scotty Cameron to a TaylorMade Spider mallet putter for the Phoenix Open.

"I've been putting pretty poorly for the good side of two years," Koepka said before the Phoenix Open. "I don't know what's going on but I've got to figure it out."

Koepka's return was, not unexpectedly, a sideshow at Torrey Pines and TPC Scottsdale. He admitted to being nervous. And not just about the golf but how he would be accepted and treated by his peers, the fans and the media.

The admission was surprising from a man who has succeeded under the most pressure-packed situations and built his reputation on an unwavering, steely demeanor.

So why the butterflies?

"Just because I care," Koepka said after his first round at Farmers. "I think I’ve fallen back in love with the game. And honestly, watching my son play a little bit and wanting him to watch me play well, and realize how much this game’s given me. How fun it is and how cool it is to just be out here."

Koepka's return comes with a price. Not just financially — he is not part of the Player Equity Program for the next five years, will not receive money from the FedEx Cup Bonus Program for the 2026 season and agreed to make a $5 million charitable donation. But also with his status.

Although Koepka received a five-year exemption into PGA Tour events for winning the PGA Championship in 2023, he has to play his way into Signature Events. And his only way to qualify for those $20 million Signature Events is through full-field tournaments like Cognizant.

A different challenge for a one-time world No. 1. But one he is embracing.

"That's the fun part," said Koepka, who is exempt into all the majors for at least the next two years and the PGA Championship for life.

"I love the grind. I've always enjoyed it. I guess it's a fresh start for me, which is cool. It's just another chapter I guess in my book. I'm excited for that."

Since winning the 2023 PGA Championship, which came 11 months after joining LIV, Koepka's game cratered. He is coming off his worst majors season, missing three cuts, and in the last two years he has finished outside the top 20 seven times in eight majors.

From 2015-2021, Koepka finished outside the top 20 four times in 22 majors.

Koepka is owning the downturn while being careful not to make the connection to playing on LIV. A popular narrative is players who received obscene amounts of money to join LIV lost their motivation, something impossible to document.

"I'm not going to put an excuse on anything else other than I'm the one holding the club, I'm the one who's got to execute everything," he said. "I just didn't do a good enough job."

Koepka reached out to Tiger Woods after gaining release from LIV

Koepka started assessing his future with LIV in September. The announcement that he was walking away from the final year of his five-year contract, one that paid him a reported $125 million, came Dec. 23.

The next move was to call Tiger Woods.

"That process got the ball rolling," Koepka said about being reinstated to the PGA Tour. "I've always had a good relationship with Tiger. Once I had the opportunity to, I guess, get reinstated on PGA Tour, it was exciting and kind of really didn't know what to do. That was the first person that kind of came to mind."

Woods did not hesitate when asked what Koepka's return meant for the PGA Tour.

"We get a probably top-3-of-his-generation player back that went to another tour, played over there, and was adamant about coming back here and got out early to come back," Woods said following a recent TGL match in Palm Beach Gardens. "That says a lot about the PGA Tour, where we're headed, what we have done, what we accomplished and the players who have stayed and who have supported the Tour.

"It's a win for everybody."

Although Patrick Reed announced soon after he was leaving LIV and has started the process to rejoin the PGA Tour, Koepka does not view himself as a trend setter.

And he certainly is not about to torch the league that lined his bank account with generational wealth beyond his wildest dreams.

"I don't regret anything I do," Koepka said. "I've learned a lot. I've always enjoyed the ride no matter where I'm at. I think that's one thing that's … you learn from anything, anything you're doing. So I have no regrets."

Koepka's return has been good for business when it comes to the PGA Tour. At least by the early returns.

The Farmers received a huge boost to its TV viewership with CBS's weekend average of 2.36 million viewers was up 63 percent from the previous year. The Golf Channel had its highest viewership for the Farmers since 2020, the last time Woods played.

And Koepka's welcome was warm with chants of "Welcome back, Brooks" from the fans.

Fleming paid close attention considering Farmers and Phoenix would be a nice indication of how golf fans will react.

"He wasn't sure the reaction he was going to get coming from not a very popular tour," Fleming said. "Were the people going to give him crap or was he going to get a lot of positive?"

Fleming saw a spike in interest in Cognizant hospitality and grounds tickets after the announcement, but this is Koepka's backyard.

And if there is one tournament in which Brooks Koepka's return will bring more people through the turnstile it's the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches.

"I think across the board in the PGA Tour … I think all three of us see and felt similar type of interest that came from it," Fleming said about the Farmers, Phoenix Open and Cognizant.

"There was certainly a nice Brooks impact that came into our tournament."

Tom D'Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at [email protected].