PGA Tour star has rule for LIV rebels wanting return in message to Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka

It remains to be seen whether LIV golfers will be able to return to the PGA Tour as part of a peace deal, but Wyndham Clark has outlined one key condition for those wanting to make a comeback

LIV rebels Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka have been reinstated.

Clark said members of the LIV Golf should only be allowed back to the PGA Tour if they had first played there wanting high profile stars like Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson.

Those who made the move to the LIV setup have since been banned from competing on the PGA Tour, in what has proven to be an ugly period for men’s professional golf. There are hopes these tensions will soon come to an end, after the Tour announced a framework agreement with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia last June.

Since then, negotiations have been ongoing between the two sides, with one big talking point centred around how LIV players will be able to integrate back into PGA Tour events.

Those involved have remained tight- lipped over how this could happen, but PGA Tour star Clark has outlined one strict condition. “I think it depends on who it is,” he told the No Laying Up Podcast at the possibility of players from the Saudi-backed circuit making a comeback.

I think guys that have had the career where they should be lifelong PGA Tour players, I think they deserve the right to come play the PGA Tour.” Of course many on the LIV roster have done exactly that, no more so than 45-time Tour winner Mickelson, who initially led the exodus t o the LIV setup.

Welcoming back Micklson and co, Clark went on: “If Dustin Johnson wants to come back and Phil Mickelson and guys that have won, Brooks [Koepka], who have won majors and are most likely hall of famers, they deserve to play wherever the hell they want, because they’re so good.”

However, where the subject was different, that was in the case of those with somewhat of a lesser pedigree though, Clark’s approach was much different. I think guys that maybe left and didn’t have that pedigree and career. I reckon those are the guys I am scared of because they know what they want and chose the right path. And this is where the chose to go take the money to play there. I think that is why many of us struggle.”

Clark then said he, among other golfers, declined to sign what would have been a very profitable agreement with the LIV brand and remained committed to the PGA Tour. In retrospective the former US Open champion opines that had he and his fellow stars been given an opportunity to come back, he alongside them would affirm by joining the Saudi trip.

‘If we were fully aware of the fact that we could take the money and then come back to do it again, then we all would have probably done that,’ Clark said. “I am sure we would all have been much more filthy stinking rich and then you come back and actually compete at the highest level.”