Joaquin Niemann Says a PGA Tour Return Would Be 'Incredible' as LIV Decision Nears

Joaquin Niemann has given LIV Golf a problem no amount of restructuring money can fix by itself: its most successful player is not sure he wants to stay. Fresh from winning the Chile Open on Sunday, the Torque GC captain told La Tercera that he is still deciding between committing to the league’s LIV 2.0 rebuild and leaving for the DP World Tour as a route back to the PGA Tour, bunkered reports. If the PGA Tour ever opened a door, he added, walking through it would be “incredible.”

What exactly is Niemann deciding between?

Two genuinely different careers. Option one is staying with LIV under its proposed new model, in which players take an ownership stake in the league rather than the guaranteed signing money of the Saudi-funded years. Option two is a season on the DP World Tour in 2027, rebuilding a route back to the PGA Tour he left in 2022.

“The truth is, I’m still deciding what to do,” Niemann said, in comments reported by bunkered and GolfMagic. “Whether I want to stay and believe in what’s happening in the league or go play more in Europe and from there try to get on the PGA Tour. So, those are my two options in the end. I’ll have to make a decision in a couple of weeks.”

The equity pitch is the sticking point. Ownership pays later, and Niemann is in his prime now. He questioned whether a project that could take a couple of years to pay off is something he wants at this stage of his career, which is the whole calculation in one answer: a golfer’s best seasons do not wait for a balance sheet.

Why is LIV asking its players to decide right now?

Because the league’s money ran out and its calendar is now set by a court filing. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund ended its funding after 2026, and LIV filed for bankruptcy protection last month while it chases new backing, with private equity firm BC Partners linked to the LIV 2.0 plan, bunkered reports.

Niemann is not a bystander in that process. Bunkered reports he was one of 30 names listed as unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy documents, owed just over $1.3 million, on a list that also includes Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson. Sergio Garcia has already gone a step further and asked the court to terminate his LIV contract outright, Golfweek reports, a reminder that the holder of the most Ryder Cup points in European history is litigating his way out while Niemann is still talking his way through the choice.

Has Niemann spoken to the PGA Tour about coming back?

No, and he was blunt about it. Asked whether contact had been made, Niemann said neither he nor anyone for him has called the PGA Tour, because its rules leave nothing to discuss, Independent Golf Reviews reports. GolfMagic reports that LIV players currently face a 12-month PGA Tour suspension before they can return, and the Tour’s chief executive said in September that no new returning-member program, of the kind Brooks Koepka used earlier this year, is being considered.

That is why the DP World Tour season matters in his plan: it is the only realistic bridge. A year in Europe keeps him in world-ranking events and in the fields that decide how you qualify for the Masters and the other majors, while the suspension clock runs. His two PGA Tour wins from before 2022 sit frozen on lists like the most PGA Tour wins leaderboard, and his PGA Tour earnings are locked in the career money list exactly where he left them, which is what walking away in 2022 actually cost players in record-book terms.

Why does Niemann’s choice matter more than most?

Because he is the player LIV can least afford to lose. His nine individual LIV wins are a league record, bunkered reports, the latest in New York in August, and he has been a top-10 fixture in its season standings while winning on home soil this week for the first time. A rebuild that needs a requisite number of star names committed by mid-October looks very different if its winningest player chooses Europe instead.

He is not the only one hesitating. FOGOLF reports that Adrian Meronk echoed the uncertainty after winning the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on Sunday, the same St Andrews event that hosted the tennis-ball protest against Celtic owner Dermot Desmond a day earlier. Meronk said the year had been strange, that there were still many unknowns, and that the win gave him reason to reconsider. When even the players holding trophies are describing the league’s future as an open question, the October deadlines stop being paperwork and become the story.

What happens next for Niemann and LIV?

The next two weeks decide it. If enough players commit by the bankruptcy threshold, LIV 2.0 proceeds with its player-owned pitch and Niemann must choose whether to be part of it. If he declines, expect a DP World Tour schedule for 2027 and a long, public wait for the PGA Tour door he described.

Either way, his comments have already done something LIV’s executives could not buy: they have told every other undecided player that leaving is a respectable option, stated calmly by the man who won more on LIV than anyone. The league that disrupted golf by signing stars now has to re-sign them, this time with equity instead of cheques, and its best player is openly pricing the alternative.