Players who sign up to LIV Golf next season will not be allowed to be members of the DP World Tour in 2027 or be eligible for selection for the European Ryder Cup team.
Guy Kinnings, CEO of the DP World Tour, issued a strongly worded statement that players must “make a choice” regarding where they play next season, closing the door on LIV Golfers who have dipped in and out of the DP World Tour when their schedule permitted.
Deadlines for applications to join both tours are in the next five weeks, although there remains uncertainty surrounding LIV Golf’s future despite it securing a possible $300m in funding as it attempts to restructure.
Kinnings said: “We have rules and regulations which are there to protect our tour and which our members must all abide by. Players who are not willing to comply with our rules and regulations should not be seeking to join our tour.”
MAKE YOUR MIND UP TIME
In previous years, conditional release agreements were agreed with some top players – including Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton – which enabled them to play on both the DP World Tour and LIV. However, players will be asked to disclose which tours they intend to play on for next year, and their answer will be considered when deciding on their membership.
About 15 LIV players – including Rahm, Hatton, Victor Perez and Tom McKibbin – have status with the DP World Tour, meaning they have eligibility under one of the membership categories.
Other LIV players, like Joaquin Niemann and Thomas Pieters, do not have such status so would either need to go through qualifying school or sign agreements with the DP World Tour by which they would receive invitations to a set number of tournaments. However, those agreements would only be available to players who were not part of LIV in the future.
The DP World Tour will not accept membership from anyone intending to play on the new incarnation of the LIV Golf circuit. If players did not disclose their intention to play LIV and went on to do so, that would be considered grounds on which to have their membership terminated.
LIV GOLF REACTION
LIV Golf, which is currently undergoing a major financial shake-up following its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last month, has subsequently accused the DP World Tour of attempting to interfere with its restructuring process.
During a court hearing in New York on Wednesday, the attorney representing LIV Golf said that the organisation was concerned by the stance taken by the DP World Tour.
Rob Fitzgerald of Gibson Dunn, the attorney representing LIV, also said that the organisation would know by the end of the month if it could continue to operate next season.
“We’re continuing to monitor this situation very closely and we’re quite concerned by it frankly,” said Fitzgerald of the DP World Tour’s position. “The timing in particular strikes us as a clear attempt to interfere with our process with our players and potentially our reorganisation writ large.
“It also raises a lot of the same anti-competitive concerns that LIV has expressed previously regarding the way competing leagues have sought to box out and punish market participants, namely these players, from participating in LIV and really only LIV.”
The PGA Tour has adopted a slightly different stance to the DP World Tour, with LIV Golf players wishing to return to the US-based circuit required to serve a one-year ban from the last LIV event they played in. This has resulted in the likes of Patrick Reed, who left LIV in January, playing exclusively on the DP World Tour in 2026.