After LIV cut him, he quit golf. Now he’s back — and contending

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 in earnings. But when LIV Golf came knocking in 2022, Perez, who was then 46, couldn’t resist the siren song of a mega-payday. “It’s like winning the lottery for me,” he said.

As a member of Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces, Perez lasted three years on the tour, never finishing better than 28th in the individual standings. After the 2024 season, when Perez finished a lowly 48th, the 4Aces cut him. But he wasn’t out of work for long. LIV leaned into Perez’s outsize personality and offered him a job as a commentator on its broadcast team.

When we say Perez dropped his clubs for a mic, we mean he quite literally didn’t touch them — for nearly a year. From January 2025 to the end of September of that year, Perez said he didn’t hit a single fade, draw, punch or stinger. Not one golf shot.

”Didn’t even think about it,” he said earlier this week. “I never thought I’d be able to play on the tour again, so I just thought, you know what, I’m just going to kind of hang out and do TV and then we’ll see where it’s at.”

“The tour” in question was the PGA Tour and its sister properties, namely the PGA Tour Champions, which Perez, before he signed with LIV, would have been eligible to play when he turned 50 in March 2026. But when he joined LIV, the PGA Tour suspended him. In late 2025, Perez applied for PGA Tour reinstatement. The Tour granted his request but with a caveat: He’d have to sit out the entire 2026 season, meaning Perez would forfeit his first 10 months of Champions tour eligibility.

“I said, Okay, ‘I appreciate the opportunity,’” Perez said. “Then I kind of got back into it a little. Then I realized I could play at three majors.” Those would the three of the five senior majors not run by the PGA Tour: the Senior PGA Championship (which is conducted by the PGA of America), the U.S. Senior Open (USGA) and the Senior Open Championship (R&A).

Perez was speaking this week from the first of that trio of events, the Senior PGA at the Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla. “Really my focus changed in August [2025] to get ready for this week,” Perez said Wednesday. “I started counting the days. I got 144 days, and then I got to start working out. I got to start practicing harder and figuring out balls and clubs and all this other stuff and kind of get ready for this week.”

That has meant finding time to practice at his Scottsdale, Ariz., club, Silverleaf, among getting his kids to and from school and getting settled into a new house, a process that has included unboxing and organizing his vast Jordan sneaker collection. There’s also been the small matter of reacclimating his body and mind to the game after such a lengthy break.

When his LIV playing career ended, Perez thought his playing career, period, ended. At that time, he couldn’t see a path back to high-level professional golf. “I said, ‘You know what, I got nothing to play for,’” he remembered thinking. So, as he globetrotted with LIV, he left his clubs at home and focused on calling golf instead of playing it. “When I came home, the boys are, like, ‘Are you going to play?’ I said, ‘No, I’m just not playing. I have no interest in it right now. I have nothing to get ready for because again, like I said, I did not think that this opportunity would come.”

Cold turkey for nine months.

Which made coming back to the game no small lift.

“It took a while,” he said. “My hand strength was gone. My arm strength was gone. Shoulders hurt. Back hurt. All the muscles I hadn’t used in so long. And then being 49, that’s not easy, either.”

Perez said he had a six-month plan, which has culminated with starting times at the Senior PGA this week. The plan is working. On Thursday, Perez opened with a three-under 69, which was just four back of the day’s low round. On Friday, he shot a 70, to climb to five under. As of this writing, he was tied for 9th, five behind co-leaders Scott Hend and Brian Gay.

Whatever happens this week and at his two other senior major starts this year, Perez will back in 2027 with a new lease on his tour life and a full schedule ahead of him.  

“I probably won’t miss an event next year,” he said. “From what I hear, this tour you want to hit it hard from 50 to 55. Since I’m missing 50, I’ll probably hit it hard the first three years and then kind of see where we’re at.”