The 2026 PGA Championship takes place amid the backdrop of what would appear to be the slow and undignified collapse of the LIV experiment.
Four years ago at the PGA Championship in Southern Hills - which had originally been pencilled in for Donald Trump's Bedminster course only to be moved after 6 January, 2021 - the burgeoning LIV controversy entered a new phase when Phil Mickelson announced he wouldn't be defending his title amid his involvement with the rebel tour.
That summer would subsequently be dominated by talk and rumour of defections, alongside golfers awkwardly fielding questions on sportswashing.
This summer, by contrast, will see much speculation on whether the defectors will be traipsing back from whence they came - and on what purgatorial conditions the PGA Tour will insist upon before they can return.
This year's Irish Open host held court on the matter in the Oval Office recently, offering the perfectly bland and normie opinion that he wanted to see all the best guys playing against one another.
Trump, who had been something of a booster of the LIV Tour in its early days and whose courses have held several of their events, can take his fair share of credit for the collapse of the rebel tour.
The disruption to the global oil market triggered by the recent war and the Iranians' clever leveraging of the Strait of Hormuz has led the Saudis to take a more parsimonious approach to their various sporting patronage projects.
The Saudis opting to be less flaithiúlach with their petrodollars has signalled the beginning of the end for the LIV jamboree.
As it stands, the tour managers and its stars are gamely insisting that they intend to keep the whole show on the road but it's hard to see how.
They will presumably have a tough time finding an investor both wealthy enough and eccentric enough to keep them in the prize money to which they've become accustomed.
The public at large never gave the impression that they regarded the breakaway tour as anything other than a meaningless and tawdry money racket, with an added dose of cringe into the bargain courtesy of their childishly named 'teams'.
It was four years ago when Greg Norman was assuring us that the various 'teams' that LIV were about to launch would soon become hugely valuable brands.
The Great White Shark had a vision in his mind's eye of golf-obsessed kids all around the world going to bed in tears because Crushers GC's winning putt lipped out on the 54th hole.
On this desk, meanwhile, we fantasised about a future in which we were accused of being '4 Aces biased scum' underneath our wire service-provided reports of the day's action.
Conscious that the 'team' concept was flopping, the LIV strategists have done much frantic tinkering in that department, grouping them together geographically in an attempt to give them some tiny shred of resonance. Thus, they have South African, Australian and Korean outfits.
Graeme McDowell, for instance, is currently part of Oklahoma GC, rebranded from Smash GC since Brooks Koepka's departure, and now captained by Oklahoma's own Talor Gooch.
"For Talor to be leading the first US-centric, geographically-located team here in Oklahoma, I think it's extra special," McDowell told reporters at a recent press conference.
"He creates a culture, he creates an energy for our team. I'm proud to be part of this team." (#ThisBadgeMeansMore #WeGoAgain).
It had long been Norman's dream to break away from the PGA Tour. He first mooted such a proposal in 1994, gathering the leading players together with a view to creating a limited field 'World Golf League', comprising him and the other galacticos of the era.
He was slapped down fairly abruptly by Arnold Palmer, then still the most distinguished elder lemon of the PGA family.
In 2022, he went full steam ahead with the idea, with the backing of the Saudis' largesse, enlisting a host of players over with the promise of "generational wealth".
A large preponderance of these were older for obvious reasons. A few barely competitive Ryder Cup captaincy candidates took themselves out of the reckoning for that honour.
But there were other genuine A-listers in the prime of their career, the most notable being Bryson DeChambeau, Koepka and, a year later and most shockingly of all, Jon Rahm.
The two leading Irish players gave it an especially wide berth, though McDowell (below) and latterly Tom McKibbin have gone over.
McDowell has spoken in recent weeks about his embarrassment concerning the 'growing the game' rhetoric he peddled upon joining LIV.
Dustin Johnson was admirably forthright in admitting he made the switch on the grounds that the Saudis had offered him the unbeatable proposition of making far more money for doing less work. Not alone did DJ waste little time in taking the deal, he sounded mystified as to how anyone else could refuse it.
Bryson doesn't quite have the stomach to trudge back into the PGA Tour's taunting and reproachful embrace, not after having spent much of the recent past engaged in legal action against them.
He insists that if LIV does wind up, he will instead spend more time with his YouTube subscribers. Have a go at breaking 50 with Nigel Farage off the forward tees at the Belfry.
Koepka has showcased his magnificent sense of timing once again by detaching from LIV just before the whole venture crashed into the railings.
To facilitate his return, the PGA Tour cobbled together a rather bespoke arrangement for him and his fellow galacticos, called the 'Returning Member Programme', which was specifically designed to entice your Rahms and your DeChambeaus and your Cam Smiths back before it was too late.
Some of the PGA Tour elders were none too pleased by this, Tom Watson barking that he thought Koepka and Patrick Reed and the rest of them "were supposed to be banned for life" and saying that if he were commissioner, he'd make them qualify again via the Korn Ferry Tour.
Koepka appears to have a keener understanding of how his fellow humans think than his old nemesis DeChambeau and has been happy to show the degree of humility and contrition required when returning to the PGA.
Rahm looks to have been greatly diminished by the whole episode, even if his bank balance hasn't been. His defection in late 2023 was a low point for the PGA in the dispute.
It was especially shocking given that Rahm had previously been one of the more compelling and soulful advocates for sticking with the established tour.
Since defecting, he has three lower top-10 finishes in the majors, though hasn't really contended in any of them, save for possibly last year's PGA Championship. The amateur psychologists have been diagnosing the Spaniard with a particularly acute case of buyer's remorse ever since he jumped ship.
This, they contend, has begun to affect his play. Another thing hobbling the LIV contingent's form in the majors is the nature of the courses they are playing on a regular basis - where a score of -23 might get you top-10 on a slow week. Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee characterised the LIV course layouts as "laughable".
The PGA Championship has chosen a few nondescript layouts in the past, the last two editions at Valhalla and Quail Hollow being good examples.
Aronimink is considered a grander setting from the perspective of the design connoisseurs, though Rory McIlroy isn't terribly enthused by the alleged lack of strategy off the tee.
There is an 11-strong LIV contingent in Philadelphia this week, with Rahm, DeChambeau and Tyrrell Hatton all among the viable contenders.
Norman, back during his days as commissioner, had a dream of his LIV brethren in the field storming the 18th green if one of their number won at Augusta, like a Ryder Cup Sunday.
Twice during LIV's existence has one of its players pulled in a major victory. Koepka, during his renaissance season in 2023, won his third PGA Championship at Oak Hill and DeChambeau pipped McIlroy in a memorable US Open at Pinehurst.
Whether LIV will be around by the time of the next PGA Championship remains to be seen.
'Coming into this tournament feels different' - McIlroy's major motivation ahead of PGA Championship #RTESport pic.twitter.com/ToPJ2tklfG
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) May 12, 2026
