The principal golf tour in Europe, the DP World Tour, has penalized players with more than $105,000 in fines for their participation in a LIV Golf event, and has excluded them from three upcoming PGA events. The move comes on the heels of the PGA Tour suspending 17 of their pro golfers who played in the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV this month.
The LIV “is an upstart professional golf circuit bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Its organizers hope to position it as a player-power-focused alternative to the PGA Tour, which has been the highest level of pro golf for nearly a century,” the New York Times reported.
The DP World Tour is named after its sponsor, global logistics company DP World, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Officials stated their reason for the action is that golfers did not secure releases from the tour when they joined the LIV Golf London event June 9-11.
The New York Post reported:
The DP World Tour on Friday fined members who competed at the Saudi-backed league’s inaugural event £100,000 ($105,000) and banned them from competing in three upcoming events that are co-sanctioned with the PGA: the Scottish Open, the Barbasol Championship, and the Barracuda Championship.
All three events are scheduled to take place in July.
The list of penalized golfers includes Sergio Garcia, Graeme McDowell, Martin Kaymer, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Richard Bland.
“Every action anyone takes in life comes with a consequence and it is no different in professional sport, especially if a person chooses to break the rules. That is what has occurred here with several of our members,” DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley said, and continued:
Many members I have spoken to in recent weeks expressed the viewpoint that those who have chosen this route have not only disrespected them and our Tour, but also the meritocratic ecosystem of professional golf that has been the bedrock of our game for the past half a century and which will also be the foundation upon which we build the next 50 years.
Their actions are not fair to the majority of our membership and undermine the Tour, which is why we are taking the action we have announced today.
PGA players who have joined the LIV include Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Patrick Reed.
“The PGA Tour maintains that all 17 players who announced participation in the new league being promoted by golf great Greg Norman will be ineligible to play in any PGA tournament or the President’s Cup,” Breitbart New reported this month.
Golf magazine asked Pelley the reason why the DP World Tour punishment differed from the PGA Tour’s decision to suspend their players, to which he explained that “though the two tours have signed a ‘strategic alliance,’ they still work and govern independently.”
The next LIV golf event will be held at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Oregon, from June 30-July 2.
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