During a warm June week at the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, over 100,000 fans celebrated PGA Tour strength. Yet new CEO Brian Rolapp, recruited from the NFL, announced a 2028 overhaul: a two-tier system splitting events into a "championship" series with $20mn minimum purses and a "challenger" tier at $4mn. "We honour tradition but not be overly bound by it," Rolapp said beside Tiger Woods.

Five years after Saudi Arabia's LIV Golf challenge, backed by the $1tn Public Investment Fund, the PGA preserved dominance by raising prize money while LIV faded. Rolapp's NFL-style commercial push includes a $1.5bn private equity deal with Strategic Sports Group. Critics argue the tour ceded control to investors just as the threat receded. Rory McIlroy, whose loyalty helped defeat LIV, called the pre-2022 tour "actually pretty good."

The dispute began when Phil Mickelson defected in 2022, accusing the tour of greed. Legal battles ensued, with expected costs exceeding $50mn annually. A 2023 framework agreement to merge never materialized, despite Donald Trump's 2025 mediation attempt.