On Thursday morning, it was confirmed that the DP World Tour had won its arbitration hearing against LIV Golf with Sport Resolutions announcing it has upheld the DP World Tour’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breached it.
With the announcement coming on the morning of The Masters, some attention has been taken away from Augusta National and, during the Sky Sports broadcast, former DP World Tour Board Member, Paul McGinley, explained that "it's a day tinged with sadness."
Speaking alongside Nick Dougherty and Butch Harmon, McGinley stated: "The Tour have got to protect their business, LIV is a rival tour. We've lost four tournaments, the members of the European Tour are playing four tournaments less that have gone over to the LIV/Asian Tour. We've also lost Valderrama, which was an iconic Ryder Cup venue. So, we surely have a right to protect our business and the Sport Resolutions have agreed with us that that is the case.
"You know, it's certainly a day tinged with sadness. I mean, we're talking about great players who have been stalwarts of the European Tour and they sued the European Tour, they felt they could play LIV and also come back and play both sides and the Resolutions have said no, you can't play both sides. If you do come back to the European Tour then there's obviously going to be sanctions.
"I think this has got repercussions for all sports going forward, that the Administrative Bodies have a right to protect their business going forward. This is quite a big day for sport because many other sports going forward now will be able to use this Resolution as a platform for them in terms of how they run their sport."
Because of the sanctions, it is likely that we will never see the likes of Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter featuring on the DP World Tour or, indeed, the Ryder Cup, ever again, with CEO of the European circuit, Keith Pelley, admitting its players now face a struggle to represent Team Europe in the Ryder Cup.
Despite there being scepticism that the DP World Tour will now lose some of its headline names, the CEO insists the future is bright for the DP World Tour amid suggestions the victory over LIV Golf could make the circuit weaker.
Speaking after the announcement, Pelley claimed that: "Players haven’t played in their national opens because they’ve had contractual commitments to play on another Tour. When they’ve played in, and it’s been so very little, they’ve only played in high profile events with large, OWGR ranking points.
"They've certainly not supported the other events on our Tour. So if the idea, if the decision had gone the other way and it would have opened the door for them to play more. I don't buy it. That door has been open since last July."
