Brooks Koepka’s return exposed the PGA Tour’s new “side door.”

Brooks Koepka returned to the PGA Tour through a side door.

According to the Associated pressDoug FergusonKoepka reportedly entered the PGA Tour’s moated headquarters for an all-important reunion meeting with new CEO Brian Rolapp through a side entrance in the building — keeping his appearance hidden from the wandering eyes of anyone in the golf world curious about the five-time major champion’s next destination… including fellow Tour employees.

In many ways, it was only fitting that Koepka returned to the PGA Tour in this way after four seasons and (conservatively) nearly $100 million with rivals at LIV. If not one side doorWhat else would we call the unprecedented rule changes put in place to give Koepka (and possibly his LIV counterparts Cameron Smith, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau) a viable path back to Ponte Vedra Beach?

Much has been written about Rolapp’s ability to pave the way for the Koepka’s return with minimal fines (a one-time $5 million charity donation and a handful of other financial hits). Much more attention has been paid to Koepka’s contrite words – to his admission that he will have to regain the trust of the Tour players he left behind. But relatively little has been said about the extraordinary use of power that Rolapp demonstrated with the creation of the so-called Returning Member Program.

The truth is, Rolapp offered the first clear glimpse into his leadership style with his handling of Koepka’s return, and for those paying attention, the side door told us everything.

A ‘simple’ job

Long before he entertained the idea of ​​bringing Koepka back, Brian Rolapp began his tenure on the PGA Tour with a mission statement.

“Look, the sports business is not that complicated,” Rolapp said at the Tour Championship last August. “You get the product right, you get the right partners, your fans will reward you with their time because they tell you it’s good and they want more of it, and then the commercial and the business part will take care of itself.”

In recent months, the Tour has made a tireless effort to reimagine its ‘product’ – including deploying an all-star team of golf and sports industry voices to craft the most compelling vision for the Tour’s events week in and week out (the so-called ‘Committee of Future Competitions’). But the easiest path to improving the PGA Tour is obvious even to the casual observer: the players.

Golf is a sport of rugged individualists, and as such its power is disproportionately concentrated in the hands of its stars. It was this rationale that made LIV a compelling bet for the Saudi PIF: if LIV could convince the lion’s share of stars to join, the rivals could capture the dominant market share in the sport overnight.

Rolapp realized that the same logic worked in reverse: if the Tour could convince the lion’s share of LIV’s big stars to leave their employers, the Tour could grow meaningfully are a share of the revenue pie, without having to make a single change in business operations.

Of course, win back those LIV stars would be tougher than losing them: the “big 3” on LIV – Koepka, DeChambeau and Rahm – were each under contract until the end of this year, and it was believed they would all have to sacrifice significant sums of money to be released from their contracts. But even as When those stars looked to leave LIV, a PGA Tour-created roadblock also stood in the way: Koepka, Rahm and DeChambeau each faced lengthy suspensions and a litany of fines from the PGA Tour for leaving for LIV.

To make matters even trickier for Rolapp, he would have to work any change past the leering eyes of a PGA Tour working class, which is already witnessing a dwindling number of available tickets and a shrinking list of spots in the Tour’s highest-paying events. In other words, Rolapp was stuck between the same rock and hard place that had given rise to it passivity in his predecessor, Jay Monahan.

This is the pretext that makes Rolapp’s creation of the “Returning Member Program” so meaningful and significant. By cultivating a small, important exception for only LIV’s best players, Rolapp shows that he is not afraid to make politically risky decisions for the betterment of the Tour. Just as importantly, he also shows a willingness to be calculated about those maneuvers, eschewing the Tour’s long-standing affinity for fairness. all in favor of a relatively direct form of cronyism.

The benefits of this approach work for Rolapp in two ways: first, it encourages those who do Real it is important to golf’s bottom line to see the benefit of working within the boundaries of the PGA Tour, rather than staying outside of it; and second, it shows those on the fence that the path back to the Tour may not be paved with gold, if it exists at all.

Why did Rolapp choose this approach? Because he understands, as he told us at his first press conference, that the PGA Tour’s business is attention. If the home viewers are interested, more sponsors will come. If there are more sponsors, the players will make more money, and if the players make more money, then Rolapp doesn’t have to worry much about his job approval rating. In this way he makes sports matters ‘not so complicated’.

On Rolapp’s PGA Tour, the rules are flexible, but the outcome is not. If you’re someone who can help create a more interesting (and profitable) PGA Tour, then you’re someone the PGA Tour wants to work with.

The path may be circuitous, but Rolapp will find an opportunity. If you’re lucky, he might even sneak you in through a side door.