DP World Tour wins case against LIV golfers

It’s official.

The DP World Tour has won its arbitration battle with LIV golfers.  

As widely reported earlier this week, Sport Resolutions today announced it has upheld the tour’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breached it.

Furthermore, appeals brought by those members have been dismissed.

The decision follows an arbitration which took place before an independent three-person panel, chaired by His Honour Judge Phillip Sycamore CBE, from February 6 -10, 2023.

In summary, the Sport Resolutions panel found that:

• Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s chief executive, “acted entirely reasonably in refusing releases”.

• The relevant regulations are lawful and enforceable.  The regulations “cannot be said to go beyond what is necessary and proportionate to the [DP World Tour’s] continued operation as a professional golf tour” and the DP World Tour has a legitimate and justifiable interest in protecting the rights of its membership.

• The sanctioned members “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”.

• All of the players’ challenges therefore failed, their appeals are dismissed in their entirety, and the £100,000 fines originally imposed must now be paid within 30 days.

Responding to the outcome, Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s chief executive, said: “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.

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“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.”

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor