Tommy Fleetwood offers opinion on Brooks Koepka's PGA Tour return

Tommy Fleetwood says it's a "great thing" Brooks Koepka has been reinstated to the PGA Tour after quitting LIV Golf.  

Koepka was allowed to exit his contract with the PIF-backed breakaway 12 months early and has already been permitted to return under a new scheme. 

The returning members programme is open to any player who has been away from the PGA Tour for at least two years and have won The Players Championship or a major between 2022-2025. 

Koepka will make his comeback later this month at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, four years after he made his last start in a regular event on the PGA Tour. 

LIV recruits Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith have also been given until 2 February to decide if he want to cross back over, but all three seem content with where they are. 

Fleetwood told reporters before the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on Tuesday that it was a "great thing" that Koepka is back. 

There was once hope that the established tours and LIV Golf could strike a deal to, at the very least, allow some cross-pollination between the circuits. 

Now it appears that any hope of "peace" has been lost. 

Fleetwood refused to be drawn into speculating whether the establishment have the momentum right now or whether LIV Golf will get some back by poaching more big names in the future. 

"Who knows?" he said. "I think that's very hard to ask. I think you would have to ask individual players on which - obviously you're asking me, but how they feel about it.

"I always said, I think people - I think in general, people want to play where their goals or dreams are aligned. 

"You know, they want to play in the place where they feel they can chase them.

"Personally, I'm playing where I feel like I can still chase my dreams, and I'm in the best place to be the best golfer I can be. 

"Other people may feel differently."

He added: "I think that's what Brooks is doing. He wants to play where he feels like he can get the most out of himself and play his best golf, and that's obviously where he's made his decisions is there and he's ended up coming back.

"What the future holds, I don't know. I saw the interview with the guys, Jon and Bryson and Cameron, and they are obviously well set on playing LIV Golf and that's where they want to play.

"Who knows? I think nobody has actually really known what's going to happen next. It's kind of the same situation everybody's in.

"Like I say, if I speak for myself, I will always make my decisions for as long as I want to be the best I can be at golf, I'll make my decisions to play where I feel like I can do that. So that's what I'm doing. Anybody else, I don't know."

That Koepka has been allowed back would've been unheard of two years ago. 

But new PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp appears to be a very different operator to current commissioner Jay Monahan. 

Under Monahan's leadership, it appeared there was absolutely no route back for the golfers that decamped to LIV. 

"I look back at it, I was never one of those that had any bad blood in particular," Fleetwood said. 

"I think another option to play golf came up, and some guys felt like they wanted to play over there. They wanted to do something different. I think that's absolutely fine."

Like any top player, Fleetwood was also linked with LIV. 

He was spotted keeping a low-profile at their stop in Las Vegas in February 2024. 

Fleetwood later said he was there to see his coach Butch Harmon and simply wanted to see a LIV Golf event in person. 

He said LIV Golf "haven't sniffed around me in this postseason".