DP World Tour issues new sanctions on 26 players
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Spaniard Sergio Garcia is one of the players who resigned their DP World Tour memberships last week.
PHOTO: AFP
DUBAI – The DP World Tour said on Thursday it has imposed a new round of suspensions and fines on 26 players who breached its rules by competing in LIV Golf and Asian Tour events without permission.
It added in its statement that the sanctions were related to events that took place from June 22, 2022 to April 2, 2023.
“In total, 26 players were today informed individually of the sanctions applicable to them based on the specific conflicting tournaments they each played in, as a DP World Tour member, without being granted a release,” it said.
“These sanctions include fines and, where appropriate, tournament suspensions.”
In April, the Tour won its legal battle to be able to suspend and fine players who competed in the first two events on the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit in 2022 without permission.
The Tour also said the new sanctions were determined on a case-by-case basis to recognise differences among tournaments and the impact it had on its broadcast partners and sponsors.
The fines ranged from £12,500 (S$20,900) to £100,000 for each breach.
The total suspension imposed on any player was a maximum of eight DP World Tour events.
Last week, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Richard Bland and Lee Westwood resigned their Tour memberships, becoming ineligible for the 2023 Ryder Cup.
All but Garcia have paid the £100,000 fine.
Europe will now be without three of its biggest Ryder Cup stars when the event gets under way in September.
Spain’s Garcia holds the record of 28.5 points. Westwood has competed in 11 Ryder Cups, a European record he shares with Nick Faldo.
Poulter is best known for his Ryder Cup exploits. Notably, he inspired Europe’s remarkable comeback in the “Miracle at Medinah” in 2012.
Westwood has previously criticised the Tour for its sanctions.
“People say I knew exactly what would happen, but nobody told us the extent of the punishments,” he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper earlier in May.
“The way I view it is that, as a European Tour member, I was allowed to be a member of the PGA Tour without any problem for all those years.
“Tell me, what is the difference? Just because LIV is funded by the Saudis – a country where my Tour used to play and where we were encouraged to play?“
Critics have said the LIV Golf Series, which offers a whopping US$20 million (S$26.7 million) individual prize purse per event, is a vehicle for Saudi Arabia to try to improve its image in the face of criticism of its human rights record. REUTERS, AFP
