DP World Tour Wins Legal Battle Against LIV Golfers

It has been confirmed that the DP World Tour has won February's arbitration hearing against a number of its members who play in LIV Golf.

On Thursday morning, Sport Resolutions confirmed the announcement, which had been made public by The Times on Tuesday, with Sport Resolutions announcing it has upheld the DP World Tour’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breached it. 

Furthermore, appeals brought by those members have been dismissed, making it likely that we will never see the likes of Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter featuring on the DP World Tour, or indeed, the Ryder Cup, ever again.

Appeals had been issued by a number of LIV players, however, the Appeal Panel ultimately found that the Appellants committed serious breaches of the Code of Behaviour of the DPWT Regulations by playing in the LIV Golf Invitational (London) and LIV Portland events respectively, despite their release requests having been refused. 

According to Sport Resolutions: "The appeals were dismissed and each of the Appellants were ordered to pay the fine of £100,000 originally imposed by the PGAET." 

What does this mean for the future of the DP World Tour players then? Well, it doesn't mean that the DP World Tour can ban players and strip them of their membership, but it does mean they can impose sanctions in the forms of fines and suspensions against the relevant players.

What it does mean though, is that it is possible LIV players will now rescind their DP World Tour memberships to avoid further fines and suspensions for competing in LIV events.

In a statement from the DP World Tour's Chief Executive, Keith Pelley, it reads: "We welcome today’s decision by Sport Resolutions which upholds our regulations and our ability to administer them. We are delighted that the panel recognised we have a responsibility to our full membership to do this and also determined that the process we followed was fair and proportionate.

“In deciding the level of these sanctions last June, we were simply administering the regulations which were created by our members and which each of them signed up to. It is, of course, regrettable that resources, both financial and staffing, which could have been otherwise deployed across our organisation, have been impacted by this lengthy arbitration process.

“However, with the clarity provided by today’s decision, we look forward to continuing to focus on our 2023 global schedule, whilst also continuing to plan for 2024 with the valued support of our many partners and stakeholders. We will now carefully consider the details of today’s decision with our Board, our Tournament Committee and our legal advisors and take the appropriate action in due course.”