My question is how lightly will the Tour now have to tread with Rory and other stars who didn't take the LIV money, and appear to have been sold down the river by Monahan? Historically, the dispute that led to this situation really started with Seve's refusal to join the PGA Tour, because of the minimum participation requirements, and Greg Norman's chafing over that requirement as well. He's basically argued throughout that the biggest names should get more money for playing less. But doing that undercuts the tournament sponsors, and the TV contracts. Will the whole idea of designated events now go bye-bye, to appease Rory? Also, my understanding is that while the PGA Tour prohibits paying appearance fees to players for entering its tournaments, that's been permitted in Europe and elsewhere. Will Rory now insist on getting paid at least some of the time to show up, to make up for the money he didn't get from LIV? What's that going to mean for TV revenues, and sponsorships, if the end result of this is to dilute the fields as much, or more, than did having two tours.
I also have to think that Koepka's success had at least a minor role in this. The undercurrent of the criticism of LIV has been that the guys playing there, with the exception of Cam Smyth, were doing so because they were worried they couldn't compete on the regular tour, due to injury (Koepka, DeChambeau), age (Mickelson, DJ) or simply not having the games (everyone else). Koepka getting health, finish 2nd at Augusta, then winning the PGA, dumped cold water on that narrative, even though the Netflix series showed he probably went to LIV because he was worried about his prospects, due to injury.
I'm not sure this whole thing isn't going to kill the golden goose for the players, in the long term.