DP World Tour wins major legal battle over LIV Golf players

The ruling could mean Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter never play on Tour again

The DP World Tour has won its landmark legal battle against LIV Golf players.

An arbitration panel has sided with the DP World Tour, former the European Tour, and determined it was correct to impose sanctions on its members such as Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter.

The Ryder Cup heroes and 10 other players were hit with £100,000 fines and two-week suspensions after appearing in the inaugural LIV Golf event last year.

The appeals have now been dismissed and they now have 30 days to pay the fines originally sanctioned.

Sport Resolutions deemed Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s Chief Executive, to have “acted entirely reasonably in refusing releases”.

While the 12 players were said to have “committed serious breaches of the Code of Behaviour of the DP World Tour Regulations by playing in [LIV Golf events] despite their release requests having been refused”.

Pelley said in a statement: “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.”