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LIV Golf is taking issue with the DP World Tour’s plans to effectively ban its members in 2027.
“We’re continuing to monitor this situation very closely and we’re quite concerned by it frankly,” Gibson Dunn attorney Rob Fitzgerald, whose firm is representing LIV in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in New Jersey, said during a court hearing on Wednesday. “We’re reserving all rights and remedies in respect to these statements that are made.”
Fitzgerald’s comments came in response to a statement by DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings on Monday. “Players need to make a choice,” Kinnings said. “As we have said for many years, 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.”
Since LIV launched in 2022, its players have been banned from the PGA Tour, but not from the DP World Tour (formerly known as the European Tour) as long as their memberships remained in good standing and they paid any fines for playing in LIV events that conflicted with competing DP World Tour events. Earlier this year, nine LIV players were granted conditional releases by the DP World Tour to keep their memberships while continuing to compete on LIV during the league’s 2026 season. But the DP World Tour will no longer approve memberships or make special exemptions for players also intending to compete on LIV.
Fitzgerald said the timing of the DP World Tour’s announcement this week “strikes us as a clear attempt to interfere with our process with our players and potentially our reorganization 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.”
LIV has not yet released a 2027 schedule. As part of the league’s proposed $300 million financing deal with BC Partners Credit, there is an Oct. 25 deadline for players to commit to “LIV 2.0.” BC Partners has the ability to delay that deadline and has already done so once. LIV players have been required to play in all league events (up to 14 per season) but have been free to play on other tours (if eligible) during weeks LIV wasn’t playing, which is expected to continue should LIV play future seasons.
“LIV has been vocal in its belief in free agency and that the best players should have greater flexibility to compete across the ecosystem,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s unfortunate that another tour is taking an opposite view and pressuring our players with false choice. And again, we’re reserving all rights in this respect.”
The DP World Tour declined to comment on Fitzgerald’s statements when Front Office Sports reached out on Wednesday, deferring to Kinnings’ statement from Monday.
Bankruptcy judge Michael Kaplan, who is overseeing LIV’s case, said in response to Fitzgerald’s statement on Wednesday, “The comments [from the DP World Tour] that I’ve heard and read do raise concerns, and we’ll await further action.”
Meanwhile, Kaplan also asked Fitzgerald when LIV anticipates being able to advise the court “whether you’re toggling to a wind down or whether 2.0 is going forward. In response, Fitzgerald said, ”We would anticipate that that decision will be made by the end of the month.”
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