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Dustin Johnson’s competitive path forward is less defined than Jon Rahm’s (Charles Laberge/LIV Golf)
As the LIV Golf saga played out over the past few weeks, Dustin Johnson’s name came up only briefly in relation to an attempt to claw back some severance pay from the Public Investment Fund as part of his contract with the league.
Johnson otherwise has said little and been seen rarely. He last played in August at LIV Golf’s final event in Indianapolis, capping a somewhat lackluster season for the two-time major champion who posted two top-five finishes among 16 tournament appearances in 2026.
Having re-signed with LIV Golf after his original four-year deal ended following the 2026 season, Johnson appeared content to ride it out with LIV Golf even in a 2.0 scenario in the aftermath of the PIF’s departure. The legal action threw some doubts into those plans, all of which became moot on Thursday when LIV Golf said in bankruptcy court that a proposed investor had backed out and its was in wind-down mode.
(NOTE: The Financial Times reported Sunday that BC Partners is still trying to revive the mostly dead LIV 2.0 effort by seeking a $50 million bankruptcy loan from the Saudi Public Investment Fund to keep future league prospects (and those $5 billion in net operating losses) on life support. Still a long way from detecting a pulse.)
And that leaves the 2016 U.S. Open champion and 2020 Masters winner in limbo.
What will DJ do?
Also in today’s DD …
Wie West’s L.A. team beats Ko’s New York squad in WTGL debut
Jon Rahm’s post-LIV starts with win; Ben James joins youth wave in Mexico
Bryson DeChambeau offers thanks and olive branch toward ‘whatever is next’
Is there a path back to Ryder Cup captaincy for LIV exiles? Rules say …
“Everything is a bit up in the air, but I can tell you he is pursuing paths toward the highest level of competition,” David Winkle, Johnson’s agent, said in a text message. “Time will tell exactly what that looks like and entails, but the wheels are in motion.”
Winkle didn’t offer any specifics, but a return to the PGA Tour remains tricky.
So far, the PGA Tour has offered no immediate path back to LIV golfers, pending the windup of bankruptcy proceedings. Year-long bans from the time of last competing in a LIV event have been in place. Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has said several times that upholding the circuit’s rules and pathways was a priority.
“The tour is a membership organization,” Rolapp said at the Tour Championship. “It has rules. Those rules exist for lots of reasons. For fair, competitive reasons. … Rules only matter if they are enforced. So accountability and discipline are essential to any organization, and certainly for the integrity of the tour and for the game, especially in a game that prides itself on rules and integrity.”
Johnson made $65 million in LIV prize money on top of his nine-figure signing bonus (Charles Laberge/LIV Golf)
If offered a return, Johnson could be exempt via the PGA Tour’s all-time money list, where Johnson is sixth with more than $75 million career earnings. There has been a one-time exemption criteria for all-time money if a player is in the top 25 and the top 50, categories which Johnson still easily maintains.
There is also the matter of his lifetime membership. Johnson has 24 PGA Tour victories in his career (he is tied for 27th all time) which has traditionally been a “lifetime” exemption category for anyone with 20 wins or more.
The only active player under the age of 50 who is ahead of Johnson on the victory list is Rory McIlroy with 30 wins. The oft-injured Tiger Woods tops the list with 82 while DJ’s fellow LIV Golf colleague Phil Mickelson has 45 career wins.
Perhaps more important as it relates to any potential olive branches extended to Johnson — he never burned any bridges on the way to LIV Golf.
When DJ left in June of 2022, he resigned his PGA Tour membership. He did not take part in any of the various player lawsuits against the PGA Tour. He never criticized the tour, actually saying only positive things about his career.
He kept it pretty simple, embracing the LIV opportunity, where he reportedly signed for more than $100 million and then won another $65 million in prize money and bonuses. Johnson won three times with LIV Golf, the last victory coming in 2024. He won the inaugural season-long individual title and bonus in 2022.
DJ’s popularity among players also can’t hurt. He and his brother and caddie, A.J., are well-liked among the PGA Tour players.
While Johnson, 42, is six years removed from his 2020 Masters victory, there are still signs of his immense talent. He was in early contention at this year’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock and still has plenty of length off the tee.
If he must ride out a suspension on the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour is also a possibility. The European circuit has made clear that it will work with individual players on various sponsor exemption opportunities. Johnson last year played at the DP World Tour’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
“Dustin is still very motivated and hungry to compete, so he has no intention of letting up,” Winkle said. “I’m actually very excited about the months ahead, wherever they may find him playing.”
Wie West’s L.A. team tops N.Y. in WTGL debut
In the inaugural heavyweight showdown of the new WTGL indoor simulator league, Michelle Wie West’s 30-somethings Los Angeles team beat LPGA Hall of Famer Lydia Ko’s 20-somethings New York side, 3-1, at SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Wie West — 36-year-old mother of two and retired LPGA icon — teamed up with Alison Lee and Gaby Lopez, riding effective use of the hammers and a near-ace by Wie West to claim the historic first WTGL match.
“I was actually really nervous, just not playing competitive golf anymore and then being in that environment,” said Wie West. “But once I got out there and I had Alison to my left, Gabi to my right, I felt so calm and so excited to be out there. It was such a blast. I had so much fun. The fans were electric, and the music and the whole format, it was just so much fun today.”
Wie West’s L.A. team got on the board first, taking a 2-0 lead on the par-3 third hole after dropping the hammer with New York in trouble in the back bunker. Par proved good enough to win the hole when Linn Grant missed a 7-footer for par.
Grant dropped the hammer on the fourth hole with L.A. in trouble after Alison Lee’s tee shot found the hazard, but L.A. declined the hammer and conceded just 1 point.
L.A. made a series of clutch 4- to 5-footers on 7, 8 and 9 to get through triples with its narrow 2-1 lead in tact heading to the singles matches with a 2-1 advantage as well in remaining hammers.
The extra hammer came in handy when Lee got a big break on the 11th hole, bouncing her tee shot off a rock and holding onto the fringe 25 feet behind the hole. With Grant in trouble after an indifferent bunker shot to 14 feet, Lee dropped the hammer, which was delined to give L.A. the hole and a 3-1 lead.
Wie West struggled on the par-4 Stinger hole, three-putting for a bogey that opened the door for Rose Zhang to win with a two-putt par. But Zhang tugged her 2-footer for par to keep the score 3-1.
That prompted New York’s Grant to use its last hammer before the 14th hole started, and L.A.’s Lee had to accept it. But Grant couldn’t make it count when her 10-footer for birdie just missed and Lee holed another clutch 4-footer for par to clinch the match with one hole left and rendering Ko’s final singles hole against Lopez moot.
Gaby Lopez and Michelle Wie West laugh it up in WTGL debut (Mike Stobe/WTGL via Getty Images)
“Today was always probably going to be the hardest match because we’re just trying to get an idea of, okay, I thought I hit that ball that way but it did something else, and we might never get the hang of it as a whole, but the reps are going to help,” Ko said of the simulator nuances. “I think that’s why we all committed to coming early, earlier than today, to try and dial it in and represent New York. We obviously didn’t win, but I think we went off to a really good start.”
Wie West will headline WTGL’s second match again on Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Ion network — this time with her other two LAGC teammates Aki Iwai (currently No. 18 in the Rolex Rankings) and budding rookie superstar Kiara Romero — against Motor City Golf Club featuring world No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul, No. 5 Ruoning Yin and Lexi Thompson.
Annika Sörenstam-designed “SOS” par-3 hole (Courtesy WTGL)
In Sunday’s inaugural match, the WTGL unveiled a hole from the league’s newest designer — World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sörenstam.
Sörenstam actually designed two holes for the simulator realm. The first — SOS — debuted Sunday, playing 184 yards as the seventh hole during the triples portion of the competition. Michelle Wie West nearly aced it, hitting a bullet right at the hole that bounced off the pin and 5 feet away. Sweden’s Grant then buried a 20-foot birdie putt and tried to scare Lee with a second hammer drop, but Lee halved the hole to keep L.A. up 2-1.
“Very shocked that that didn’t go in,” Wie West said. “I thought there was no way that was not going in.”
The par-3 SOS hole pays homage to a Swedish warship that sank in Stockholm harbor during its maiden voyage in 1628. The hole places the ship in a Nordic setting of icebergs and icy waters and includes 12 tee boxes, with playing distances ranging from 119 to 233 yards. Players hit from an iceberg tee, carrying the ship and shaping shots around its towering masts to reach an ice-floe island green. The name SOS makes three allusions: the international distress signal; Swedish pop group ABBA’s hit song “SOS;” and the “shot over sail” challenge facing players on the tee.
“Designing for WTGL and TGL gave us an opportunity to be creative with the setting while thinking about how the best players in the world would approach each shot,” said Sörenstam. “With SOS, we wanted to bring a piece of Sweden into the experience and create a hole that is fun to watch and challenging to play.”
Sörenstam’s second hole design — a par 4 that can play as long as 511 yards — will be unveiled later during the WTGL season.
Jon Rahm lifts his first non-LIV trophy since 2023 in Abu Dhabi (Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images)
Last week in golf …
Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship: For the first time since leaving for LIV golf at the end of 2023, Jon Rahm won a non-LIV event with a sterling performance in the DP World Tour playoff event at Yas Links. Rahm’s final-round 67 lifted him to a two-shot victory over former Legion XIII teammate Tyrrell Hatton, with Rory McIlroy two shots further back in third and Italy’s Francesco Laporta in fourth. Since joining LIV in 2024, Rahm posted 33 top-10s in 37 LIV finishes, including four wins and 10 runner-ups. In 20 starts away from LIV in majors and on the DP World Tour, he had eight top-10s including two runner-ups but no wins. In his last start at the BMW PGA Championship in September, he finished 138th of 138 players to complete 36 holes at Wentworth before taking an extended paternity leave. Did Abu Dhabi mark a fresh start for the now former LIV star who will play on the DP World Tour next season? “Yeah, one can say that,” Rahm said. “After everything that’s gone on with some poor play and some mental battles with a lot of noise, to come back out, after a rest and having a new addition to the family, it’s quite special. It’s been quite a while since I played good in a DP World Tour event and in my last start, if we don’t count the withdrawals, I finished last. So from last to first — it’s a pretty good feeling.” Rahm climbed to sixth in the Race to Dubai standings with a chance to add the DPWT season-long title to his LIV crown at next week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, where he’s won three times before. McIlroy moved up to second behind Race leader Eugenio Chacarra and within reach of a record-tying eighth DPWT season title. “Enough positive signs heading into next week and this is a familiar spot for me,” said McIlroy. “I’m excited for it and the goal is definitely to win the Race to Dubai again.”
World Wide Technology Championship: Blades Brown – at 19 years, 5 months and 18 days old – fired a 9-under 63 in the final round at El Cardonal at Diamante in the PGA Tour FedEx Fall event and birdied the second playoff hole to become the youngest player since 1931 and the fourth-youngest ever to win a PGA Tour event. Brown chased down four-stroke 54-hole leader Ben James and then beat James in a playoff between two rising superstars. Brown holed a 6-footer for birdie on the 72nd hole to set the clubhouse number at 23-under, one stroke better than playing partner Michael Kim who holed a 9-footer for birdie on the last hole to briefly tie for the lead immediately before Brown sank his birdie. After scuffling along at even par all day, James needed to eagle the 18th to force a playoff. He hit a fairway wood from 295 yards to 20 feet and calmly buried the eagle putt to force extra holes. His missed 5-footer for birdie on the second pass at 18 in the playoff left the door open for Brown to hole his 3-footer to win. “I got him this time but I’m sure we’re going to be battling it out for years to come,” Brown said.
Toto Japan Classic: Japan’s Shuri Sakuma shot 8-under 64 Sunday to rally from three behind to win the LPGA Tour event at Taiheiyo Club’s Minori Course in Japan by four shots over compatriot Aki Iwai. An eight-time winner on the LPGA of Japan Tour, Sakuma’s first LPGA Tour victory makes her eligible to join the
