Rickie Fowler isn’t ready to be as forgiving as Rory McIlroy to those who defected to LIV Golf should they want to return to the PGA Tour.

McIlroy — once a staunch PGA Tour defender — said Tuesday before the start of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am that he thinks it would be “hard to punish people” who left for the Saudi-backed LIV and expressed a desire to get the best players in the world back on one tour again.   

“I don’t think there should be a punishment,” McIlroy said. “Obviously, I’ve changed my tune on that because I see where golf is and I see that having a diminished PGA Tour and having a diminished LIV Tour or anything else is bad for both parties.

“It would be much better being together and moving forward together for the good of the game. That’s my opinion of it. So to me, the faster that we can all get back together and start to play and start to have the strongest fields possible, I think, is great for golf.”

When asked about it after his round Thursday, Fowler wasn’t as open to allowing players to return without any repercussions. 

“As far as decisions to go elsewhere and just welcome back, I don’t think it’s a direct road,” FowIer said. “They made decisions — there has to be something for it. Whether how small or big, that’s not up to me. I feel like I’ve been saying it will be interesting to see how the next few months or year or two years go, and we’re still in that spot.”

Fowler did agree with McIlroy’s desire to face the best competition golf has to offer, while not faulting players for leaving for LIV.

The LIV roster currently boosts the likes of Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio Garcia and the recently signed Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton.

“Ultimately, for the game of golf and having the best players playing against each other more often, that’s ultimately what we’re trying to do with signature or elevated events,” Fowler said. “Right now, with the handful of those guys being at LIV, that only happens when it comes to the majors.”

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf reached a framework agreement to align the two entities in June, but no deal has been reached as the two sides have extended their deadline to reach one.

The PGA Tour did announce an agreement with Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of billionaire sports team owners — including the Mets’ Steve Cohen — to add $3 billion into a new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises.

It left Jordan Spieth to say he believed the PGA Tour now didn’t need to make a deal with LIV. 

“I don’t think it’s needed,” Spieth said before the start of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “The idea is that we have a strategic partner that allows the PGA Tour to go forward the way that it’s operating right now without anything else, with the option of other investors.”