Players Used to be Fat, Happy, and Dumb.

Over a year ago, the PGA Tour entered a deal with the Strategic Sports Group, receiving $1.5 billion in exchange for a percentage of the newly created PGA Tour Enterprises.

All of these changes, either financially or operational, happened primarily due to the founding of LIV.

“Whether you stayed on the PGA Tour or you left, we have all benefited from this,” Rory McIlroy said in San Diego two weeks ago. “I've been on the record saying this a lot like we're playing for a $20 million prize fund this week. That would have never happened if LIV hadn't have come around.”

Tiger Woods, who met with President Donald Trump last week along with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and Policy Board Member Adam Scott, didn’t take the position that LIV forced the issue as McIlroy did. Still, on the CBS broadcast on the Sunday of the Genesis Invitational, it was clear that things had to change.

“We're going to get this game going in the right direction,” Woods said. “It's been heading in the wrong direction for a number of years, and the fans want all of us to play together, all the top players playing together, and we're going to make that happen.”

Woods almost sounded like Phil Mickelson, who would rail on the issues of the PGA Tour and their considerable missteps of a Tour that made him millions.

At the time the left-hander sounded like a spoiled brat, but now its unclear exactly how right Mickelson was to sound the alarm bell.

Instead, Mickelson left and joined LIV.

Even Spieth, who recently came off a second stint on the Policy Board, seems to agree that chance was needed, saying that a lot has been done reactively.

“I know they're going through their process of future product model stuff, involving networks, involving fans, involving sponsors,” Spieth said of the PGA Tour’s transition. “Those are the three that need to be involved, as well as, obviously, finding the right situation for the players, being at the forefront of their mind.”

The process involves talking to 50,000 fans to gauge what the future of the PGA Tour platform should look like.

Over the following months, depending on where the discussions with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, LIV, and the PGA Tour land, will likely determine the PGA Tour platform's future.

Much is in limbo as of the first week of the 2025 Florida Swing. Who would have thought that would have been the case just five years ago when the PGA Tour seemed bulletproof, and its players were fat, happy, and dumb?