Keith Pelley, the chief executive of the DP World Tour, has heralded the “landmark” ruling in an arbitration case between his organisation and 12 LIV rebels, which he believes has ramifications across sport.
Sport Resolutions has published its judgment on players who unsuccessfully challenged the tour’s imposition of £100,000 fines and suspensions for playing in LIV events, including their maiden one at the Centurion Club last year. The tour had not given these members releases or permission to appear on the LIV circuit.
The ruling said the golfers in question “committed serious breaches of the code of behaviour” of the DP World Tour. Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are among the players who now have to pay £100,000 within 30 days.
“It’s great that it has given us clarity, not just for golf but for sports organisations,” Pelley said. “Sports organisations now will look at this landmark case and understand that they have rules and regulations.
“There’s rules and regulations everywhere and it’s not OK to just sign up for something and then just arbitrarily decide not to adhere to those rules and regulations. That’s the way the world works. That’s life.”
Westwood, Poulter, Sergio García, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell are household names in European golf, but now compete on the LIV tour. “It’s their choice,” said Pelley. “They have chosen where they want to play. They knew that there was going to be consequences.
“I’ve said all along, I don’t begrudge any of them for going at any time. But you can’t break rules and regulations that are set up by the members for the members, that they have signed up to, with no consequences. It just doesn’t make logical sense.”
Matthew Schwartz, counsel to LIV Golf, said: “We disagree with the procedural opinion from the DP World Tour’s arbitral body, which has failed to address in reasonable substance why competitive forces must be upheld. By punishing players for playing golf, the DPWT is seeking to unreasonably control [them] and it is the sport and fans that suffer. There are no winners.
“This is a sacred week in the global sports calendar and the on-course competition is what matters. LIV remains focused on its decades-long vision to enhance the game and is looking forward to its upcoming tournament in Australia in front of 70,000 fans.”
It now remains to be seen whether there will be an appeal against this decision, possibly to the court of arbitration for sport, with LIV’s backing, or if the golfers simply resign from the DP World Tour. Pelley would not disclose whether his tour would seek to apply further, including retrospective, penalties. The prospect remains that the players could be hit with a further and hefty bill.
“There’s going to be a lot of collective discussions and collective joint decision-making, similar to the way that we went through the process to do the very first fine at the Centurion Club,” Pelley said. “We are grateful for the fact the panel felt that was a reasonable and proportionate fine. As you know, there are a lot – not only LIV events, Asian Tour events, other tour events – that players ask for releases, and some of those have been rejected and now we have to go back and look at those.
“What we will do is we will have discussions with our tournament committee, with our board, with our legal advisers, with our senior staff to determine what is fair and proportionate and that’s the process that we’re going to take.”
Albeit it was almost certain not to happen anyway, Pelley confirmed García, Kaymer and McDowell can never be Ryder Cup vice-captains or captains, having not fulfilled their tournament-playing regulation in Europe in 2022.
