Another major, another reminder about men's golf split between PGA Tour, LIV Tour

We're deep in the weeds of another men’s golf major, this time the U.S. Open at fabled Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh.

That means another chance to watch the game’s top players battle for a title that could change, or at least enhance, their careers. So we’ll see Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy and maybe Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa fighting for the national championship.

But since this is a USGA event and not a PGA Tour event, we saw Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka. It's just the third time this year – starting at the Masters and continuing at the PGA Championship – that PGA Tour and LIV Tour golfers goes head to head.

And at the end of the week, golf fans will be left to wonder what it would be like to see all the best players in golf playing together more than four times a year.

It was three years ago this month that the LIV Tour debuted in London with plenty of relevant stars from the PGA Tour making the jump to the big-money tour backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. It was two years ago this month when the PGA Tour and PIF announced a framework agreement that could in some way unite men’s golf again.

But now, talk of getting the tours together seems to have evaporated. The PGA Tour, with an infusion of billions of dollars from the Strategic Sports Group, now takes a stance of strength, when two years ago it was the PIF that had the momentum and the PGA Tour had significant legal fees to pay.

All of that, of course, is back-room politics. It’s people in power trying to remain in power, or gain more power in the game. Unfortunately, none of that is bringing the game back together.

And we know what the game looks like when the best play against the best. Anyone who watched Rory McIlroy’s playoff victory in the Masters knows that having McIlroy and DeChambeau in the final pairing on Sunday made for great viewing. The same thing happened when DeChambeau outlasted McIlroy at the 2024 U.S. Open, or when Xander Schaueffle outlasted DeChambeau at the 2024 PGA Championship.

Just weeks ago, both DeChambeau and Rahm were in the mix late into Sunday afternoon before Scheffler ran off with the title. The best viewing for fans is when everyone gets together in big tournaments. But after this week’s U.S. Open, the gathering of the best will happen just one more time in 2025 -- at the Open Championship in July. It will then be another 10 months before that kind of drama and intrigue will happen again at the 2026 Masters.

The rhetoric about the split remains pretty much unchanged from three years ago. The LIV Tour players made their own choice, so they have to live with the consequences. The LIV players shouldn’t be taking money from the questionable Saudi regime. The PGA Tour let the situation get out of its control. The LIV Tour is irrelevant because no one watches their broadcasts. You can believe whichever narrative you like, and it’s perfectly acceptable, because there is a lot of truth in both of them. But the rhetoric doesn’t fix the split in the game, either.

Are fans fatigued? Somewhat. PGA Tour ratings are mixed these days, some tournaments doing well, some not well at all with viewers. LIV has been unable to gain any traction for its broadcasts, now on Fox and FS1. Over the three years LIV has existed, golf has lost viewers and fans in general.

We know that even if the game was united again, Scheffler, McIlroy, DeChambeau and Rahm wouldn’t play together in 20 events a year. Just look at the last two PGA Tour events, when McIlroy skipped the Memorial that Scheffler won, and Scheffler skipped the Canadian Open, where McIlroy played as a tune-up for the U.S. Open.

So watch the U.S. Open on a great golf course with great players. But remember, there was a time when players like Scheffler, Schauffele and Rahm would all play together in just a regular PGA Tour event like The American Express in La Quinta, as they did as recently as 2023.

Watch the U.S. Open, see how the pros struggle on the tough Oakmont course and see who comes out on top in the national championship. But remember that as the two sides remain entrenched, men’s golf will remain split between the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour. And that’s still bad for golf fans who want to watch battles between the best more than four times a year.

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on X at @larry_bohannan.