DP World Tour to refuse LIV players in 2027 season — SkimNews
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- DP World Tour will reject membership from any player who signs with LIV Golf for 2027, with CEO Guy Kinnings telling players they must "make a choice" — a dramatic hardening from past conditional-release deals with Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton
- LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund withdrew its multi-billion-dollar backing, and last week announced a possible $300m financing deal from BC Partners Credit
- PGA Tour strategic-alliance negotiations coincide with the policy shift, which is also driven by LIV offering players equity stakes — a structure the European tour calls incompatible with its members-organisation model
- The DP World Tour sign-up deadline is 16 November, while LIV's court-supervised restructuring requires player commitments by 25 October; undisclosed LIV intentions will trigger membership termination
- Jon Rahm, a two-time major winner, will not return to LIV; lawyers for Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith asked the court to confirm that rejecting LIV contracts counts as "termination" so they can negotiate with other tours, and Richard Bland is the only player to publicly back LIV 2.0
Why it matters: Top players face a binary choice between DP World Tour membership (deadline: 16 Nov) and LIV's restructured contract (deadline: 25 Oct), with Ryder Cup eligibility for Europe tied to Tour membership. With Rahm already exiting and DeChambeau and Smith's lawyers gaming the court, BC Partners' $300m bet on a "critical mass" of players is off to a rocky start.
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