The PGA Tour and DP World Tour announced on Tuesday that they were reconnecting with an old friend, the Asian Tour, which is exiting its relationship with LIV Golf as golf’s global realignment continues.

What does that mean? In short, the move has ramifications for the global golf ecosystem, the hierarchy of its respective tours, the home of several historic national opens and the future of LIV Golf, which had leaned on the Asian Tour since its inception.

The Asian Tour had been part of LIV’s ecosystem since before its first event in 2022, with the Saudi PIF funding both LIV and the Asian Tour-sanctioned “International Series” events. The Asian Tour served as an established ally for the controversial startup, receiving funding plus the appearance of high-profile LIV stars at some of its events in return.

But with that PIF funding gone and LIV’s future up in the air, the Asian Tour has chosen to align with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.

“Six years ago, it was right for us to do a partnership with LIV Golf, but given the circumstances now, we’ve had to look at other options,” Asian Tour CEO Cho Minn Thant told Golf Digest.

What will that alignment look like? Two things specifically:

-Multiple co-sanctioned events between the Asian Tour and DP World Tour for the 2027, 2028 and 2029 seasons

-Pathways for Asian Tour top players, who can earn cards on the DPWT or its secondary circuit, the HotelPlanner (formerly Challenge) Tour, based on their positions in the Order of Merit; players on the DPWT have a direct pathway to the PGA Tour

We don’t know which events will be co-sanctioned; those are expected to be announced this fall, when the DPWT begins to release its 2027 schedule.

The move has major ramifications for LIV. For one thing, the “LIV 2.0” vision that commissioner Scott O’Neil has pitched initially included a network of national opens owned by the Asian Tour. The league will also now have to look elsewhere for the promotion and relegation system it promised in order to earn World Ranking points.

The Asian Tour’s loyalties — and its national opens — are just the latest episode in an ongoing conversation around which tournaments matter and what makes them matter. The DP World Tour’s circuit includes more than a dozen national opens, while the Asian Tour revolves around several more.

Just last year, the Masters and Open Championship formalized pathways from six national opens it deemed significant, including four co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour, as well as the Japan Open on the Japan Tour and the Hong Kong Open on the Asian Tour. LIV golfer Tom McKibbin earned his way into the Masters and Open when he won last fall’s Hong Kong Open by seven shots. It’s easy to imagine that return to its former place as a co-sanctioned event.

A release from all three tours recalled a relationship that began in 1999 with the co-sanctioning of the Malaysian Open between what was then the European Tour and the Asian Tour. They formalized that relationship with a strategic alliance that ran from 2016 to 2021 before LIV’s arrival.

The move also seems like another step in formalizing a global hierarchy of tours, with the Asian Tour giving players access to the DP World Tour, from which point they gain access to the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour has laid out plans for a new structure, beginning in 2028; specifically how the DP World Tour and Asian Tour factor into those plans remains to be seen.

Below are what each of the respective parties had to say about the agreement:

Cho Minn Thant, Commissioner and CEO of the Asian Tour:

“We feel the time is now right to collaborate with the DP World Tour and PGA Tour to enhance the Asian Tour for our members, fans and partners. Bringing the three Tours together under one partnership will increase the bandwidth of the professional game in Asia. Not only will co-sanctioning events see our members competing regularly on the global stage, but we are excited to welcome players from the other Tours to our pinnacle events, which showcase the strength and diversity of golf in Asia.”

Ben Cowen, Chief Tournament and Operations Officer for the DP World Tour:

“We are delighted to rekindle our historic relationship with the Asian Tour and indeed strengthen it with the addition of the PGA Tour to our new partnership.

“As Golf’s Global Tour, we bring together the best international talent and the formal pathways established by this partnership will provide unprecedented international opportunities for Asian Tour members. Our agreement therefore represents not only a hugely positive step for golf in Asia, but also an exciting new era of collaboration for our game globally.”

Christian Hardy, Senior Vice President of International at the PGA Tour:

“This agreement is another example of what can be accomplished when organizations come together with a shared vision for the future of professional golf.

“Through our Strategic Alliance with the DP World Tour, we have worked to build a more connected global golf ecosystem, and we are excited to welcome the Asian Tour into that effort. Together, we are creating new opportunities for players, enhancing key National Opens around the world and continuing to evolve and strengthen pathways to identify and develop the next generation of elite talent.”

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Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sports betting, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow Brady on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the 2026 3M Open, which gets underway on Thursday in Minnesota.

Soccer fans from around the world have left the United States after six wonderful weeks of World Cup action, and golf is just returning to America after having left the country for the last two weeks — touching down just outside of Minneapolis in Blaine, Minn., for the eighth edition of the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities.

This will be much more traditional, TPC-resort-style golf than what we have witnessed in Scotland and England recently. This week, we’re back to tree-lined fairways and water everywhere. TPC Twin Cities is an Arnold Palmer design that was tweaked by a couple of Minnesota natives, Tom Lehman and Tim Herron, in 2018 before the course made its Tour debut the following season. The fairways are fairly wide and the rough is not especially penal but with water hazards lurking on 15 of the 18 holes, there is something to be said about accuracy off the tee.

If we look at the past champions of this event, Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and Total Driving are what jump out at me. Kurt Kitayama is your defending champion. Matt Wolff won the inaugural 3M Open and Bryson DeChambeau finished runner-up. Tony Finau has won here, as has Cameron Champ and Jhonattan Vegas. If one was ever going to enter a team competition for work off the tee, that just might be your Hall of Fame roster.

Of course, I also looked at Strokes Gained: Approach. The greens here are fast, Bentgrass surfaces and they are bigger than average size. Hitting the greens in regulation is not terribly difficult at this course but players will need to find a hot putter, make a lot of birdies, and separate themselves on the 11 par 4s at this par-71 layout that measures more than 7,400 yards.

Players have stated that this golf course reminds them of PGA National, where they play the Cognizant Classic, and that is understandable with Total Driving also being a factor there, along with a great number of water hazards. I believe two other courses we see regularly that reside in the Midwest also make sense as possible comps: TPC Deere Run (John Deere Classic) and Detroit Golf Club (Rocket Classic). Finally, I looked at a couple of other driver-heavy courses where we see similar-strength fields, like Silverado in Napa (Procore Championship) and El Cardonal at Diamante, home to the World Wide Technologies Championship in Los Cabos, Mexico.

It is also about that time of the season when jockeying for position in the FedEx Cup points list becomes a factor. This is one of only three tournaments remaining before we hit the playoffs and only the top 70 players make it to the postseason — so getting inside that number is crucial for how things play out for these players between now and next season.

For a moment of housekeeping, it has been a pretty wild ride here for the column this summer as far as getting multiple selections to the lead on Sunday, only to eventually miss out on the outright winner. Eric Cole, Mac Meissner, and Ryan Gerard went into the final round at Colonial in first, second, and third place. Each had a piece of the lead on Sunday and Cole wound up losing in a playoff. Jackson Suber in Canada, Ben Kohles at the John Deere, and last week, Si Woo Kim at the Open Championship — each had the lead on the inward nine on Sunday and not one of them got home for us. On to Minnesota.

Jackson Suber (60-1)

I believe he is going to win soon and I don’t want to be on the sidelines when he does, so I am diving in again on the young up-and-comer. It was something last week in his Open Championship debut to see him contending for the win. We noted he led on the back nine on Sunday in Canada last month. He’s finished sixth at both the John Deere and Rocket Classic and 11th at El Cardonal. Over the last 24 rounds, Suber ranks 11th in this field for Total Driving and is seventh for Birdie of Better Percentage. Suber is currently 79th in the FedEx Cup standings.

Emiliano Grillo (70-1)

The veteran Argentinian is one of those names that always seems to pop up in these events. He’s been 10th, third, and runner-up here in Minnesota, runner-up twice at the John Deere Classic, as high as eighth at PGA National, and has won the Procore Championship in Napa, where he also finished fourth last season. Grillo has some work to do down the stretch as he is currently 109th in FedEx Cup points. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks 14th in this field for Total Driving and is 16th for SG: Par 4s.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (75-1)

Another Tour veteran that is on the outside looking in, sitting at 92 on the FedExCup points list. Bezuidenhout was 12th a few weeks ago at the John Deere Classic, a place where he too has finished runner-up. Unfortunately, off the tee is not the South African’s strong suit but he is excellent on approach, ranking 16th in this field over the last 24 rounds, and he possesses a tremendous short game. He is seventh in this field for SG: Par 4s.

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Michael Brennan (85-1)

The big-hitting American was one of the first players that came to mind when beginning to dive into this handicap. Over the last 24-rounds, he is 31st in this field in Total Driving and is No. 1 for SG: Off the Tee. He’s been playing well, finishing sixth at Colonial at the end of May and then since, Brennan has made four straight cuts — at the U.S. Open, John Deere Classic, Scottish Open, and last week at Royal Birkdale. He hasn’t even been on Tour a year and he already has a win at the Black Desert Classic in Utah last fall.

Gary Woodland (90-1)

One of the OG drivers of the golf ball who is still getting it done with the best of them. Woodland, of course, won in Houston earlier this season at the driver-heavy Memorial Park. He ranks sixth in this field for SG: Off the Tee over the last 24 rounds and is fifth in Total Driving. He’s finished 11th and 20th here at the 3M Open, has been as high as 19th at Silverado, and has finished top 10 four times at PGA National, including a runner-up in 2017.

Look, I get it.

Changes to professional golf in the LIV era, while frequent, are about as interesting as bowel movements.

I get it because I have also felt my eyes glaze over at a headline capturing the “latest changes.” I get it because I have also wondered when and how much I am supposed to care about the smallest shifts in corporate governance and marketing budgets. I get it because I have also felt a vague annoyance with the fact that this news cycle develops in a thousand small drips rather than a single, steady stream of information.

As a reporter, it is my job to care about these things — and I’ve felt that way. I can only imagine where that leaves you.

But some changes in golf are significant not for what they are but for what they represent. That’s the category the two changes filed on Tuesday morning fit into in the golf world: The PGA Tour’s expanded strategic alliance with the DP World Tour and Asian Tour; and the LPGA’s decision to play an event in Hawaii at what might be considered the best golf course on the islands, Nanea.

These changes, or perhaps more accurately, acquisitions, reflect more than just a shift in the way we view the golf calendar. They represent two seismic shifts in the way the business of professional golf is conducted. As educated, intelligent, literate golf fans, that makes these changes considerably important to your perception of the sport around you, so let’s talk through each of these changes and what they mean.

1. The strategic ‘strategic alliance’

The PGA Tour has made a lot of very precise moves since being taken over by new CEO Brian Rolapp: the announcement of a new two-tiered tour; the shaping of a competitive new schedule; the decision to blast sponsor’s exemptions into the sun.

But none might be considered more strategic than the move announced Tuesday morning: the Tour’s decision to launch a new “strategic partnership” with the DP World Tour and Asian Tour through 2029.

Sharp golf fans will remember that the Tour’s decision to partner with the DP World Tour ahead of the launch of LIV was at least partially responsible for saving their bacon. With the DPWT at their side back in 2021, the PGA Tour could be sure that the DPWT wouldn’t partner with LIV, creating an international super league that could have threatened to split the balance of power in modern pro golf forever. Under the agreement, the Tour could also push to expand its international footprint and its domestic talent pool without ever engaging in a LIV bidding war. A win-win-win.

That initial agreement is expiring soon, leaving the Tour to negotiate new terms with the DPWT to ensure their Roosevelt-Churchill partnership continued. But there’s been a little uneasiness about how it would play out, especially now that the Tour is now safely in it Truman era. (I’m not sure about my decision to cast Jay Monahan in the role of FDR in this metaphor but stick with me.)

Tuesday’s announcement doesn’t prolong the DPWT partnership, but it does create a new partnership in which both the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour are on the same time. The new agreement also adds a partnership with the Asian Tour, which had previously been aligned with LIV, into the fold. While the alliance certainly has its benefits for the Asian Tour (namely money and a path to the PGA Tour), it is most beneficial for the PGA Tour, which can now claim absolute world dominance over LIV.

LIV is currently furiously in the search for fundraising, and also facing some serious economic danger if it’s not able to raise that money quickly. The Asian Tour figured to be at least an important piece of those negotiations. The Tour’s decision adds what could only be described as an Ali haymaker to its current repertoire of jabs and hooks at its floundering competitors.

But the most fascinating thing about this move actually has little to do with LIV. It’s that the Tour probably didn’t need to do it. Even before Tuesday’s announcement, LIV was already in a load of hurt and facing an uphill battle to long-term solvency. The PGA Tour was already holding all the cards.

And yet Tuesday’s announcement suggested that Rolapp wasn’t content with that outcome. He wasn’t just hoping to win the fight; he was hoping to win by way of knockout. He didn’t want to see LIV fall; he wanted to make sure he was the one pushing them over.

The Tour will say that they’re merely acting in their own interests. And they are. It just so happens that their interests are aligned with killing LIV and all of its offspring.

[Extreme Kevin Kisner voice] Well, Dan, they don’t call it strategic for nothing!

2. The NEW Hawaiian Swing

Not to be outdone by Rolapp’s acts of aggression, LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler also made waves on Tuesday morning.

Kessler and his tour announced that the LPGA is headed to Hawaii, bringing a first-of-its-kind event to what many consider the best course on any of the Hawaiian islands, Nanea, for sometime in the spring of 2027.

There’s a lot we don’t know about the so-called Nanea Cup, but here’s one thing we do: It represents an impressively targeted attempt to steal marketshare right from the under the PGA Tour.

Golf fans will recall that the PGA Tour has abandoned the “Hawaiian Swing” altogether in the new age, opting instead for tournaments held in major metro areas in the “lower 48.” With the new event, the LPGA is (smartly) betting they can build something curated and intentional in a market the PGA Tour has left behind.

But the idea is about more than just high hopes. Charles Schwab, Dell and Salesforce have all come in as sponsors for the new event, which will feature 95 LPGA stars competing against the top 25 players in the collegiate game. The timing of the new tournament will fall on the same weekend (but critically outside of the broadcast window) of the Players Championship, giving the LPGA a chance to draft off a weekend of heavy golf-watching crowds. And the tournament host will provide a draw on its own: Nanea is regarded by many as the top course in Hawaii, and has already established itself as a haven for women’s golf, hosting the Stanford women’s team’s annual “Nanea Invitational.”

It’s early for any of us to say if the new event will be a success, but you can certainly give points to LPGA brass for trying. The opportunity presented by the Nanea Cup represents the exact kind of swing that has been sorely missing from the tour for years: big, bold ideas to target golf-dense audiences and draw considerable TV interest.

Of course, options like this only come around every so often. (If you could do ’em all the time, everybody would’ve done them already.) But the Nanea Cup gives the LPGA a chance to target a new kind of audience for its tournament hosts: Low-scale, high-production-value events held in major golf markets on elite golf courses. That sounds like a winning strategy to me, and I (selfishly) hope some of the more open-minded Long Island country clubs are keeping an open mind.