Although attention is firmly on the first Major of the year at Augusta National, it has been confirmed that the DP World Tour has won its arbitration hearing against LIV Golf, which took place in London in February.
On Thursday morning, Sports Resolution confirmed the announcement, which had been made public by The Times on Tuesday, with Sports Resolution announcing it has upheld the DP World Tour’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breached it. Furthermore, appeals brought by those members have been dismissed.
BREAKING: The DP World Tour has won its legal battle against LIV Golf.pic.twitter.com/xsROF1nlS4April 6, 2023
Appeals had been issued by a number of LIV players, with the likes of Ryder Cup heroes Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer just some of the names included amongst the appeal.
However, the Appeal Panel ultimately found that the Appellants committed serious breaches of the Code of Behaviour of the DPWT Regulations by playing in the LIV Golf Invitational (London) and LIV Portland events respectively, despite their release requests having been refused.
According to Sports Resolutions: “The appeals were dismissed and each of the Appellants were ordered to pay the fine of £100,000 originally imposed by the PGAET.”
Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are just some of the names which will be affected by the recent outcome
(Image credit: Getty Images)
What does this mean for the future of the DP World Tour players then? Well, it doesn’t mean that the DP World Tour can ban players and strip them of their membership, but it does mean they can impose sanctions in the forms of fines and suspensions against the relevant players.
In a statement from the DP World Tour’s Chief Executive, Keith Pelley, it reads: “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…
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