Golf's war is over. Peace will take a while.

The surprise agreement paves the way for LIV golfers to rejoin the mainstream.

The questions far outnumber the answers about Tuesday’s thunderclap news. Yes, the PGA Tour is merging with LIV and the DP (European) Tour. No, this is not The Onion.

We’ll deal with those questions as we go. Here’s the kneejerk reaction:

— There is only one plausible reason, at least at this time, for the PGA Tour to do this. That is the mortal fear that LIV would be successful in its restraint of trade lawsuit against the Tour and thus endanger the Tour’s tax-exempt status. Commissioner Jay Monahan praised the ability of the merger to create an LLC. Otherwise there would be no sense in surrendering, not after a year of unusually pointed accusations between the defectors and the holdovers. The PGA Tour has revamped its money structure and arranged for the best golfers to play together at more tournaments. LIV was having trouble finding sponsors, had minimal TV exposure, and had not pried loose any signifiant PGA Tour talent since it nabbed Cam Smith. The PGA Tour was in a position of strength. It didn’t exactly surrender on Tuesday but it didn’t conquer either.

— Now Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and the rest have a “process” to “re-apply” for the PGA and Euro Tours as soon as 2023 is over. That is great news for the TV rightsholders, especially when the LIV group continues to win or play well in major championships. But it won’t go over well, not initially, with the PGA Tour players who stood firm, turned down outrageous money offers from LIV and, in Rory McIlroy’s case, carried the PGA Tour flag in presser after presser. McIlroy has been the point man and has alienated the LIV players, maybe beyond repair, and his preoccupation with this role has clearly damaged his golf, especially with possible victories on the line. He clammed up about the issue at the PGA Championship but talked about it again at Memorial, and then dissipated on Sunday with a chance to win.

— The LIV players signed huge contracts in exchange for losing opportunities on the PGA Tour and getting Official World Golf Ranking points. The PGA players turned those down. Now all is forgiven, at least by the Tour. We’ll see how McIlroy and others react at a player meeting at the Canadian Open with Monahan later Tuesday. Make sure security is close by.

— Whether the agreement will free up Koepka and others to play in this year’s Ryder Cup is still undetermined, but it would undermine the event grievously if such champions couldn’t play.

— LIV Tour’s team concepts must be resolved as well. The PGA Tour seems amenable to allow its players to form such teams and collect bonus money regardless of how the individual players perform. Will this make it easier for sponsors to get involved with the teams? You would certainly think so, particularly if McIlroy, Collin Morikawa and other tour stalwarts get involved.

— Even though Greg Norman didn’t learn this news until, literally, a minute before the announcement, this is enormous validation for him. He caught major flak for his role in recruiting PGA Tour talent, but the truth is that he made untold millions for PGA Tour players even before the merger.

— The announcement also energizes the Twitter mischief of Phil Mickelson, who has been trashing McIlroy, calling Brandel Chamblee “soft” for his criticisms on the Golf Channel, and even posting a picture of Hideki Matsuyama boarding a Spirit Airlines flight and advising him to join the HyFlyers, which is Mickelson’s team on LIV golf. “That’s not how we fly,” Mickelson needled.

— This will be a very ugly sausage-making process in the short term but it will profit the top golfers immensely in the long run, particularly if the tours are truly integrated and if a world circuit comes out of this (another vision by Norman, long ago). But it won’t be good news, necessarily, for a lot of U.S. and European tournaments that have been major cogs of those tours for decades. Golf should be working toward enlarging opportunities for professionals to play, and it’s hard to see how this merger promotes that.

— As for the outrage of dealing with the Saudis and basically letting them subsidize golf, that is certainly disturbing. It’s also disturbing that corporations who sponsor PGA Tour events deal with the Saudis, and that the PGA and Euro Tours have relationships with China, and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Saudi Arabia just Tuesday to talk about expanding relationships.

— And longtime golf writer Jeff Babineau had the most salient question. He wanted to know if the PGA Tour will allow players to wear shorts now. Again, the answers can’t possibly match the questions just yet.