The DP World Tour is expecting an influx of players from LIV Golf next year and is ready to extend an olive branch to all the former rebels, including the face of its doomed revival, Bryson DeChambeau. The two-time US Open winner had been due to sign for LIV 2.0 next season, saying recently their “business plan made a lot of sense” and that the reborn rebel tour would “last forever,” but instead they began bankruptcy proceedings in a New Jersey court on Thursday following the withdrawal of their primary financiers, BC Partners. In a 13-minute hearing LIV’s lawyers announced formal plans to liquidate rather than set up a new tour following the decision of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to withdraw their funding from next season.
PIF spent over $7bn in five years setting up a rebel tour that split golf in two before protracted talks over merging with the PGA and DP World Tours involving US president Donald Trump that ultimately collapsed. DeChambeau is ineligible to join the PGA Tour, where he has not played for over four years, due to a blanket ban on LIV players that runs for 12 months from the date of their last tournament appearance on the Saudi Arabia-funded circuit. The 33-year-old has never been a member of the DP World Tour, but as a former major winner has an option to join that expires next year, with 16 November the deadline for applications.
Under DP World Tour regulations major champions are given a five-year window for joining, but 12 months is taken off for every year the option is not activated, leaving 2027 as the last season open to DeChambeau. The major champion window has already expired for LIV players Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson, although the DP World Tour will permit them to play at certain events under their new Invite Policy, which represents an attempt to add value to lesser tournaments. Such invitations will not be offered to premier events such as the PGA Championship at Wentworth or the Scottish Open, but a tournament victory elsewhere would permit the winner to apply for category three membership of the DP World Tour facilitating a full return.
Other LIV players eligible for invitations include Joaquín Niemann, Thomas Pieters, Charles Howell III and Lucas Herbert. In addition around 15 LIV players, including Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, still hold DP World Tour membership so are eligible for every event. Although Sergio García resigned his membership in 2022 to join LIV the Spaniard’s career earnings mean he retains a category ranking and is able to reapply, which he has said he will do.
With no indication from the PGA Tour that they are willing to relax their one-year ban following LIV’s implosion many of the rebels appear likely to play at DP Tour events, following the example set by Patrick Reed. On leaving LIV Golf in August 2025 the American joined the DP World Tour and is currently No 2 in the rankings, earning a PGA Tour card for next season. While they have not commented publicly, DP World Tour officials are understood to feel that LIV’s imminent liquidation has vindicated their new hardline approach to the tour.
Any player who signed up for LIV 2.0 would have been banned from the DP World Tour next year and been ineligible for the 2027 Ryder Cup, with chief executive officer Guy Kinnings saying the players must “make a choice,” a new policy that led to Rahm and Hatton leaving LIV. While LIV 2.0 did have $300m of funding in place from BC Partners they were unable to secure enough players to service the planned 17-tournament global season. With the two main tours both making clear that the era of conditional releases and “double dipping” was over only 15 players led by DeChambeau agreed to stay on, with the Financial Times reporting that only four of them signed contracts.
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