Amid the rolling fairways of The Renaissance Club, where the 2025 Genesis Scottish Open unfolds, a young Spaniard named Eugenio Chacarra is set to make his PGA Tour return.

At 25, Chacarra’s journey is a compelling narrative, one laced with ambition, betrayal, and a striking lack of self-awareness. His excitement to tee it up on the PGA Tour, a stage he’s openly coveted since his LIV Golf departure, stands in stark contrast to his vocal criticisms of the Saudi-backed league.

Yet, the irony of his story runs deeper: while Chacarra laments LIV’s failure to deliver Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points, he seems oblivious to the forces that orchestrated that exclusion, forces tied to the very tour he now eagerly embraces.

Chacarra’s golfing odyssey began with promise. A standout amateur, he turned professional in 2022, lured by LIV Golf’s lucrative offer at just 22 years old. The deal was tantalizing: a reported multi-million-dollar contract and a chance to compete with some of the game’s biggest names. In his fifth professional start, Chacarra clinched a victory in Bangkok, pocketing $4 million and cementing his status as one of LIV’s brightest young stars.

The shine quickly faded, though. By the end of 2024, Chacarra’s team, Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC, dropped him, and his LIV career came to an abrupt halt. The reasons were clear: lackluster performances and a growing disillusionment with the league’s structure.

In interviews earlier this year, Chacarra didn’t hold back. “When I joined LIV, they promised OWGR and majors,” he said. “But it didn’t happen. I trusted them. I was the first young guy, then the others came after I made the decision. But OWGR and majors still hasn’t happened.”

He went further, slamming LIV’s culture: “On LIV, nothing changes; there is only money. It doesn’t matter if you finish 30th or first.” (Actually, it does since the LIV Golf Individual standings are used for exemptions into the majors.) His words painted a picture of a young player betrayed by broken promises, yearning for the prestige of majors and the legitimacy of world rankings.

Now, Chacarra’s return to the PGA Tour via the co-sanctioned Scottish Open, made possible by his DP World Tour membership and a win at the 2025 Hero Indian Open, marks a new chapter. He’s effusive about the opportunity, describing it as a “life-changing week” and a step toward his dream of PGA Tour membership.

Currently 19th in the DP World Tour’s season-long standings, a strong finish could propel him into the top 10, earning him a PGA Tour card for 2026. The Spaniard’s enthusiasm is palpable, his sights set on the fierce competition and legacy he believes the PGA Tour offers.

But here lies the irony, as glaring as a missed two-foot putt. Chacarra’s grievances with LIV Golf center on the absence of OWGR points, a critical currency in golf that unlocks major championships and career-defining opportunities. Yet, he seems blind to the machinations behind that absence. The OWGR’s refusal to grant points for LIV events wasn’t a neutral decision or a failure of LIV’s leadership alone. It was the result of a calculated effort, widely perceived as collusion between the PGA Tour, the OWGR board, and other establishment golf bodies to marginalize the Saudi-backed league.

The PGA Tour, wary of LIV’s financial might and its threat to the status quo, leaned heavily on its influence within golf’s governing structures. The OWGR, dominated by representatives from the PGA Tour and other traditional tours, rejected LIV’s application for ranking points in 2023, citing format concerns like team play and limited player turnover — objections many analysts deemed flimsy.

This wasn’t just a bureaucratic snag; it was a deliberate blackballing of LIV Golf players. By denying them OWGR points, the PGA Tour and its allies effectively locked LIV golfers out of majors, which rely heavily on rankings for qualification. Players like Chacarra, who bought into LIV’s vision of a new golfing order, found themselves stranded, their victories and paydays meaningless in the eyes of golf’s old guard. The PGA Tour’s one-year suspension policy for LIV defectors, like the one Chacarra is still serving until September 2025, further tightened the screws, ensuring that players who dared to cross the divide faced exile.

Yet, Chacarra’s narrative casts LIV as the sole villain, with nary a whisper about the PGA Tour’s major role in his plight. His excitement to join the PGA Tour, the very entity that orchestrated the rankings blockade he so bitterly resents, is a classic case of sour grapes tinged with self-unawareness. He rails against LIV’s unfulfilled promises but seems oblivious to the PGA Tour’s complicity in ensuring those promises went unfulfilled. It’s as if he’s traded one master for another, eagerly embracing the tour that punished him and his peers for their LIV dalliance.

This isn’t to absolve LIV Golf. The league’s leadership, led by Greg Norman, oversold its ability to integrate into golf’s ecosystem, promising access to majors and rankings without securing the necessary agreements. Chacarra’s frustration is valid: his Bangkok win, a career highlight, did nothing to boost his OWGR standing or earn him a major berth. But his tunnel vision, fixating on LIV’s failures while ignoring the PGA Tour’s power plays, reveals a naivety that undercuts his righteous indignation.

The Scottish Open itself is a fitting stage for this irony to play out. A co-sanctioned event, it allows Chacarra to bypass his PGA Tour ban through his DP World Tour credentials, a loophole that underscores the absurdity of golf’s fractured landscape. As he tees off alongside stars like Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, Chacarra will compete for a $9 million purse and precious FedEx Cup points, all while chasing the PGA Tour dream he believes will define his legacy. But the shadow of his LIV past lingers, as does the unspoken truth: the tour he’s so thrilled to join is the same one that helped derail his early career.

Chacarra’s story resonates beyond the fairways. It’s a parable of youth, ambition, and the peril of missing the bigger picture. His talent is undeniable; his Hero Indian Open win moved him from 309th to roughly 180th in the OWGR, a testament to his potential. But his failure to connect the dots between the PGA Tour’s actions and his own struggles suggests a golfer more focused on the next shot than the broader game.

As the Scottish Open unfolds, Chacarra’s performance will be closely watched. A strong showing could catapult him toward PGA Tour membership, fulfilling the goal he’s chased since leaving LIV. But whether he’ll ever recognize the irony of his journey — celebrating a tour that once blackballed him while decrying the league that paid him millions — remains an open question. For now, Eugenio Chacarra is a young man in pursuit of glory, blissfully unaware that the system he’s embracing played a starring role in his earlier frustrations. In golf, as in life, the fairways are rarely as straightforward as they seem.