According to Golf Channel, Akshay Bhatia has turned down a serious offer to join LIV Golf. Bhatia is the latest PGA Tour player the league, with help from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, is trying to poach for the 2026 season, which begins next month.
Bhatia would have been the biggest player to sign with LIV Golf in the middle of an offseason where he mostly missed the ball. Lee Min-woo, Lim Sung-jae, and Kim Si-woo are all international players who were unsuccessfully recruited by LIV Golf, and each announced on social media that they will play on the PGA Tour in 2026.
Bhatia, 24, has been a full-time member of the PGA Tour since 2023. During his time on tour, the muscular left-hander won two games and finished T3 at last year’s Players Championship, just a few strokes short of the playoffs. By all accounts, Bhatia is a rising star. He is expected to compete for a spot on future U.S. Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup teams.
In addition to the heavy-handedness at the recruiting level, LIV Golf lost one of its biggest stars. Brooks Koepka partes ways with the leagueIn December, he announced that he would focus on his family in 2026, with many believing he was close to returning to the PGA Tour once the path was clear.
Koepka has won five times at LIV Golf since 2023 and became the first player from the circuit to reach the top on a major stage when he won the 2023 PGA Championship.
Taylor Gooch was named captain of Smash GC in Koepka’s place. Harold Varner III will reportedly join the team as Thomas Detley and Elvis Smiley enter the league. Detrie’s win at the WM Phoenix Open moves him into the top 50 of the 2025 FedEx Cup rankings. Smiley, on the other hand, is an exciting young talent from Australia who won the Australian PGA Championship in late 2024.
Other newcomers to LIV Golf include Victor Perez and Rory Canter, who earned their PGA Tour cards for the 2026 season by finishing inside the top 10 in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai. However, the British player ultimately decided to return to LIV Golf, where he primarily played, in 2023 instead of trying out for the PGA Tour.
