LIV Golf promised its players more money and a different way to play the game. But for some, it came at a cost that money could not make up for: time with family. Brooks Koepka left LIV two days before Christmas, citing his family as the reason. Weeks later, he admitted that he had missed being able to have his family travel with him. Patrick Reed followed five weeks later. After spending the season working his way back, Reed completed his return to the PGA Tour on Sunday in Dubai. And after reaching that goal, Reed opened up about what his time away had cost him at home.

“It’s been hard, ever since joining LIV, to get the family to be able to travel and get the kids coming out and watch me play. Because it’s not like you can just hop on a flight and get over there. With school and everything, they are not able to come out hardly at all except for the summer.”

Reed is based in The Woodlands, Texas, with his wife Justine and their two children, Windsor-Wells, 12, and Barrett, 8. When he announced his exit in January, days after winning the Dubai Desert Classic, he asked Dustin Johnson, the 4Aces and LIV Golf to “respect the decision we have made for our family, our children, and our future.”

Unlike Koepka, Reed didn’t qualify for the PGA Tour’s Returning Member Program, which is limited to major winners from 2022 to 2025. He chose the DP World Tour, where he needed a top-10 finish among players not already exempt. He won the Dubai Desert Classic and the Qatar Masters, and lost a playoff in Bahrain. He finished fourth in the final Race to Dubai standings with 3,627.26 points, safely inside the cutoff.

The price was a different kind of travel. “I’ve played now on just about every tour, and it [is] hard over here, traveling and flying nine, ten, 11, 12 hours or more to every single event is challenging.”

An injury at the BMW PGA Championship cast doubt on his title hopes, but his card was already secure. The irony is plain. Patrick Reed left a global league to be home more, then spent a season on long-haul flights to earn the right to stay there.

A Return Without a Victory Lap

His former colleagues don’t have that luxury. Before the finale, Patrick Reed said he doesn’t “really get any satisfaction” from beating them back. The PGA Tour hasn’t announced a pathway for ex-LIV players and is reportedly waiting on LIV’s bankruptcy proceedings, which could run into 2027. The Athletic has reported that this could change in January. Meanwhile, the DP World Tour has reportedly begun offering 2027 invitations to former LIV players.

Tyrrell Hatton, another ex-LIV player, won the season-ending event on Sunday and finished third in the Race to Dubai.

Reed’s real payoff is practical. “Now them being able to have an hour or two-hour flight, in for the weekends, or miss a day or two of school to hang out with dad is going to be awesome.”

He hasn’t played a full PGA Tour season since 2021. He wants to “assert myself into the top ten in the world again” and has voiced ambitions of a Ryder Cup return in 2027, when the event is played at Adare Manor in Ireland from September 17-19. The 2018 Masters champion returns as a known name in the game, with plenty to prove.

For Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, the case against the LIV model came down to time at home. Both reached the same conclusion, and Reed had to travel a very long way to prove it.