After LIV cut him off, he quit golf. Now he’s back – and he’s arguing
Pat Perez had a stellar PGA Tour career. In 515 career starts, he had three wins and 64 top-10s, and banked nearly $30 million. But when LIV Golf came knocking in 2022, Perez, then 46, couldn’t resist the siren song of a big payday. “It’s like winning the lottery for me,” he said.
As a member of Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces, Perez spent three years on tour, never finishing better than 28th in the individual standings. After the 2024 season, when Perez finished a lowly 48th, 4Aces cut him. But he was not unemployed for long. LIV depended on Perez’s personality and offered him a job as a commentator in its broadcast team.
When we say Perez dropped his clubs for the mic, we mean he didn’t touch them – for almost a year. From January 2025 until the end of September of that year, Perez said he did not hit a single fade, draw, hit or stab. No one golf.
“I didn’t think about it,” he said earlier this week. “I never thought I’d be able to play on tour again, so I just thought, you know, I’ll just sit back and do TV and see where it goes.
The “tour” in question was the PGA Tour and its sister sites, the PGA Tour Champions, Perez, before he signed with LIV, was eligible to play when he turned 50 in March 2026. But when he joined LIV, the PGA Tour suspended him. At the end of 2025, Perez applied for reinstatement on the PGA Tour. The Tour accepted his request but with a caveat: He would have to sit out the entire 2026 season, meaning Perez would lose his first 10 months of Tour eligibility.
“I said, OK, ‘I’m excited for the opportunity,'” Perez said. Then I slowly got back into it. Then I realized I could play in three majors. Those would be three of the top five not run by the PGA Tour: the Senior PGA Championship (run by the PGA of America), the US Senior Open (USGA) and the Senior Open Championship (R&A).
Perez was speaking this week from the first of those three events, the Senior PGA at Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla. “My focus really changed in August [2025] to be ready for this week,” said Perez on Wednesday. “I started counting the days. I got 144 days, then I started working out. I have to start practicing more and getting balls and clubs and all these other things and kind of ready for this week.”
That has meant finding time to work out at the Scottsdale, Ariz., club, Silverleaf, between taking his kids to and from school and settling into a new house, a process that includes unpacking and organizing his vast collection of Jordan sneakers. There was also the small matter of getting his body and mind back into the game after such a long break.
When his LIV playing career ended, Perez thought his playing career was, period, over. At the time, he couldn’t see his way back to professional golf. “I said, ‘You know what, I have nothing to play for you,'” he recalled thinking. So, as he played LIV, he left his clubs at home and focused on calling golf instead of playing it. “When I got home, the boys said, ‘Are you going to play?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not kidding. I don’t care about it right now. I can’t prepare you for anything because, like I said, I didn’t think this opportunity would come.”
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Cold turkey for nine months.
Which made getting back into the game no small feat.
He said: “It took time. “The strength of my hand was gone. My arm strength was gone. Shoulders hurt. My back was hurting. All muscles I hadn’t used in a long time. And being 49, it’s not easy, either.”
Perez said he had a six-month plan, which culminated in the opening times at the Senior PGA this week. The system is working. On Thursday, Perez opened with a 3-under 69, which was 4 back from the low round of the day. On Friday, he shot a 70, to move up to five under. At this writing, he was tied for 9th, five behind co-leaders Scott Hend and Brian Gay.
Regardless of what happens this week and in his other two major career starts this year, Perez will return in 2027 with his touring life renewed and a full schedule ahead of him.
“I probably won’t miss the event next year,” he said. “From what I hear, he wants to hit this tour hard from 50 to 55. Since I’m short of 50, I’ll probably hit it hard in the first three years and then start to see where we are.”
