Hudson Swafford, the embodiment of the hypothetical question that has consumed professional golf for nearly two and a half years, watched the PGA Tour’s fall finals last month with a mixture of envy and relief.
“I wouldn’t want to play today,” Swafford laughed as the field at the RSM Classic faced brutally cold conditions and wind gusts reaching up to 30 miles per hour from the Atlantic Ocean. “I miss seeing a lot of my friends, especially playing at home. Maybe not the weather they are having today. Time heals many things, that’s for sure.”
Sea Island Golf Club is just a few miles from where Swafford lives on St. Simons Island, Georgia, but on this stormy day the PGA Tour event might as well have been on another planet.
Swafford was one of the original 17 players suspended by Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan in June 2022, shortly after participating in the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational Series event, for violating the circuit’s policies regarding conflicting events and media rights release .
From that first wave of suspensions, the unanswered question loomed over the professional game: Would players like Swafford ever be allowed to compete in Tour-sanctioned events again?
Monahan’s first memo addressed the outsized elephant in the room, saying “we are prepared to address those questions [if players wish to return to the Tour]and we will approach them the same way we approach this entire process: by being transparent and respecting the PGA Tour rules you helped establish.
Two and a half years later, the path back for players who have joined the Saudi-backed league has been anything but “transparent,” and thanks to Swafford, the question is no longer hypothetical.
“I don’t know, the Tour has a tough attitude towards one [one-] year suspension [for players who joined LIV Golf]; There are some really gray things going on with LIV and I didn’t know if I was going to come back to LIV,” Swafford told GolfChannel.com. “I tried to go back [to the PGA Tour] spoken last year [Jason Gore, the Tour’s senior vice president, player advisor to the commissioner] And [Monahan] and thought I did everything quite cordially, just told them how I felt. They could never give me an answer.”
To be clear, Swafford wants to return to the PGA Tour. He is willing to serve the suspension imposed by the circuit and even pay fines to return. However, the Tour has not given Swafford a clear path, despite numerous requests.
According to documents provided during the disclosure phase of the now-dismissed lawsuit between the Tour and LIV Golf, players were originally told they would be suspended from participating in Tour-sanctioned events for a year after their last LIV Golf event. For Swafford, this would mean he would be eligible to compete in Tour-sanctioned events on September 16, 2025, including the Monday qualifiers and the Korn Ferry Tour events.
A Tour spokesperson declined to comment on a possible suspension or fine for Swafford, or whether the 37-year-old would retain his status as a former champion.
“Past champions are competing in some fall events. Will my status as champion be reinstated in September?” Swafford asked. “I can’t seem to get any answers. It’s quite frustrating.”
Some of that frustration for Swafford is professional, some is personal. After a difficult year as a ‘wildcard’ player at LIV Golf, he finished in 55th placee consists of 57 players and is in the circuit’s ‘drop zone’, meaning he will be relegated from the competition unless he is offered a new contract.
“I have played poorly the past two years because of the hip injury. I’ve had a hard time, my golf game has had a hard time. Not doing what I was good at, struggling with the driver,” Swafford said. “That’s the first thing I want to do: have fun playing golf again and then concentrate on the possibilities.”
With uncertainty over the Tour’s return, his options are limited to this month’s LIV Golf promotional event in Riyadh, which would see a return to LIV, and kicks off the Asian Tour’s International Series. His professional insecurity is especially worrying given that the framework agreement, which was announced in June 2023 and ended the lawsuit between the Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, specifically laid the groundwork for a path back for LIV players to the Tour.
“Subject to the execution of the final agreement, PIF, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour will cooperate and work in good faith to establish a fair and objective process for all players who wish to re-apply for membership the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour … to determine fair criteria and conditions for acquisition, consistent with the policies of each tour,” the agreement said.
Swafford said he spoke to Monahan again in October at the Dunhill Links Championship on the DP World Tour and hopes his condition can pave the way for a broader reunification of the professional game.
“I feel like this is a pretty big deal. I know I’m not the first guy they want back, but I feel like they need guys to come back,” Swafford said.
What exactly a return to the Tour for LIV players would look like is one of the biggest issues delaying talks between the Tour and PIF, according to a member of the policy council. Swafford suggested the issue may be even more complicated when it comes to some issues. of the game’s biggest stars to join LIV.
“I get the tough sit-out of a year from the last LIV event, but a guy like Brooks [Koepka] and Bryson [DeChambeau] I’m not going to do that to return to the Tour. She [the Tour] I really don’t know,” Swafford said. “What excites me is that guys are coming back to the DP World Tour, they’ve paid their fines and now they have free rein. Why are you closing down big names?”
Players who are members of LIV are allowed to play DP World Tour events, provided they pay significant fines; although Jon Rahm has challenged these fines and been granted access to events during the review process. Swafford said the path back from the LIV abyss for European players, along with the PGA Tour’s “strategic alliance” with the DP World Tour, is sending players a mixed message.
‘I see [the Tour] has taken the tough stance, but DP World Tour has gone the other way. Bernd Wiesberger was kind of in my situation and went straight back to DP World, his suspension was three events and he was allowed to start playing,” said Swafford.
Swafford also said he would be interested to see what happens if the Tour and PIF reach a deal which is now almost a year after the framework agreement deadline, but he understands that if he wants to return to the Tour he will have to spend his pound of money have to pay. meat.
“My first goal is to get my golf game back to 2021 levels; it was miserable and things outside the course affected that. It has been a rollercoaster ride, no doubt,” he said. “They need someone coming back, I don’t think golf is big enough to be completely separate. The best players have to play against each other more than four times a year.”
The road back to the Tour is personal for Swafford and he understands it is complicated, but as the Tour season comes to an end at Sea Island, Swafford’s desire to return sends a clear message – this question is no longer hypothetical.
