Koepka starts process of $5M charity donations for his return to PGA Tour

LOS ANGELES (AP) — One of the conditions for Brooks Koepka to return to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf was a $5 million contribution to charity. That process is underway, with $1 million going to the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation, the primary charity of the Cognizant Classic.

Koepka also designated (with PGA Tour approval) $1.5 million to 10 charities. That included the ALS Bridge Foundation, which longtime Acushnet executive Peter Broome recently launched.

Broome, well known from his 30 years in the industry, was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in August 2024. His mission with ALS Bridge Foundation is to accelerate the search for life-saving solutions and close the gap between laboratory discovery and when patients receive treatment.

The foundation is directing 100% of proceeds toward programs that accelerate drug trials, improve diagnostic access, and fuel collaborative research across the United States and Canada.

Part of the fundraising includes an auction of exclusive experiences provided by a list that includes Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Ryder Cup captains Keegan Bradley and Luke Donald, and CBS announcer Jim Nantz.

Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith and Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki are leading the auction offers in Canada.

The other $2.5 million of Koepka’s contributions will be equally distributed to charities selected by eligible PGA Tour members, such as their foundations or other charities they support.

Eugenio Chacarra was the biggest college star LIV Golf signed when the Saudi-funded league launched in 2022. He was the No. 2 amateur in the world at Oklahoma State, and he won in his first season on LIV.

But it wasn't long before he started contacting various PGA Tour officials, and Chacarra left LIV after 2024 with an eye on getting to the PGA Tour, which he called a lifelong dream.

He gets a start next week as a sponsor exemption to the Puerto Rico Open. His only other time competing in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event was last year in the Scottish Open, co-sanctioned by the European tour. Chacarra is a European tour member from winning the Hero Indian Open last year.

“My goal since I was little is to be on the PGA Tour,” Chacarra said Tuesday. “I’m excited to finally get a chance to play on the PGA Tour. I’ve been working a lot of these couple weeks at home. I needed some time to reset and focus on what’s the most important thing for me right now, that’s to get on the PGA Tour as quick as possible.”

Chacarra, a 25-year-old from Spain, says he has no regrets about joining LIV because he felt that move was right for him at the time.

He said upon leaving LIV Golf, “I see what it’s like to win on the PGA Tour and how your life changes, how you get major access and ranking points. On LIV, nothing changes, there is only money. It doesn’t matter if you finish 30th or first, only money.”

“I think I was losing a little motivation to get better out there on LIV at the last year I was there, so it was time for me to move on and start a new pathway,” he said on a video call.

His best route to the PGA Tour might be getting one of 10 cards to the leading players in Europe because he plays a full schedule there.

Justin Thomas had his first competition in five months Monday night when he played with his Atlanta Drive team in a TGL match. He took that occasion to announce he will return to the PGA Tour next week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Thomas has been out since back surgery in November. He is keeping expectations reasonable.

“Look, I obviously want to and would love to play well next week, but I’m also understanding that it’ll be almost five, six months since I’ve played a competitive tournament," he said. "So I’m not exactly expecting anything great. But at least everybody else will be struggling with me at Bay Hill, so that’ll make me feel a little bit better, hopefully.”

So much was made of the new tee on the fourth hole at Riviera extending it to 273 yards, the longest par 3 among regular PGA Tour stops.

“A horrible change,” Rory McIlroy said, one of several observations (rarely positive) going into the Genesis Invitational.

The previous time at Riviera in 2024, only 15% of players hit the green in regulation, the lowest on tour that year.

But the change wasn't just about length. The tees were moved to the right with hopes of making George Thomas' original redan feature more accessible, and 30 to 40 yards on the right were recontoured to enhance the redan features.

Also, the green was expanded to 5,792 square feet (it previously was 5,082 square feet).

The greens were exceptionally soft last week, a product of heavy rain earlier in the week that allowed players to take on flags without shots bounding over the green. So another year might be required to get a better sense. The results, however were noticeable.

Players found the green 65.9% of the time for the week. The highest rate was Saturday — the hole played 262 yards, the longest of the week — when 37 of 51 players (72.6%) hit the green in regulation.

McIlroy played it 2 under for the week — two birdies and two pars.

Michelle Wie West played her last tournament outdoors in the 2023 U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach. The former Women's Open champion and still one of the biggest names on the LPGA will return indoors as part of the WTGL to start later this year.

Wie West is an investor in TGL's Los Angeles team.

“I think success for me is really to use WTGL as a platform to keep growing the game,” she said. “I want to see more young girls play the game, and hopefully when they turn the TV on and it’s not just men playing TGL, it’s women, I think that does so much to grow the game.”

Her other goal?

“Be better than Kevin Kisner,” she said, adding at one point she will be nervous about what comes out of her mouth while wearing a microphone.

Wie West joins previous LPGA players who have signed on for the tech-infused indoor league, including world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul, Lydia Ko, Charlie Hull and Brooke Henderson.

The WTGL is to start in December, giving the women their own stage with the possibilities of mixed events once it gets established.

Charlie Woods, the son of Tiger Woods who has committed to play at Florida State, has Players Group Management representing him for name, image and likeness deals. Players Group Management also is handling NIL with another Florida State commitment, Miles Russell, the No. 11 amateur in the world. ... Jimmy Roberts is the 2026 recipient of the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Journalist Award, presented to the longtime NBC Sports host and reporter at the Cognizant Classic on Tuesday. ... Adam Scott, who finished fourth at Riviera on a sponsor exemption, moved to No. 5 on the “Next 10” list of those eligible for the next signature event at Bay Hill. He withdrew from the Cognizant Classic this week. ... PGA of America vice president Nathan Charnes now holds a seat on the PGA Tour board after the president, Don Rea, had his responsibilities reassigned to focus on PGA member priorities. Charnes is in line to become PGA president this fall. ... Marco Penge has won the Seve Ballesteros Award after his European tour peers voted him player of the year. Penge won three times on the European tour in 2025.

All six winners on the PGA Tour this year already were eligible for the Masters.

“Everyone always says the hole looks small when you’ve got pressure. I thought it looked pretty big. I felt good in that moment.” — Jacob Bridgeman on his 3-foot par to win at Riviera for his first PGA Tour title.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Jacob Bridgeman poses with the winner's trophy after winning the Genesis Invitational golf tournament at Riviera Country Club, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Caroline Brehman)

Adam Scott, from Australia, hits from the fourth tee during the third round of the Genesis Invitational golf tournament at Riviera Country Club, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Caroline Brehman )

CAIRO (AP) — Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday after authorities ended a monthslong shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted, as they were before the cutoff began during nationwide protests in January.

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment's notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40%.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It's too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.

Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war's steep economic costs.

The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.

A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn't believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.

A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.

Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.

Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.

A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.

“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.

“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.

That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.

The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.

Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.

A woman checks her smartphone while sitting on a bench along a sidewalk in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)