Drawing to a close the first battle between golf’s established tours and LIV Golf, Sport Resolutions has upheld the DP World Tour’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breach it. With the decision, the appeals brought by the players affected have been dismissed.
The decision followed an arbitration which took place before an independent three-person panel, chaired by judge Phillip Sycamore CBE, from February 6-10 2023.
In summary, the Sport Resolutions panel found that:
• Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s chief executive, “acted entirely reasonably in refusing releases”.
• The relevant regulations are lawful and enforceable. The regulations “cannot be said to go beyond what is necessary and proportionate to the [DP World Tour’s] continued operation as a professional golf tour” and the DP World Tour has a legitimate and justifiable interest in protecting the rights of its membership.
• The sanctioned members “committed serious breaches of the Code of Behaviour of the DP World Tour Regulations by playing in [LIV Golf events] despite their release requests having been refused”.
• All of the players’ challenges therefore failed, their appeals are dismissed in their entirety, and the £100,000 fines originally imposed must now be paid within 30 days.
Following the announcement of the decision, Keith Pelley said: “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 decision, we look forward to continuing to focus on our 2023 global schedule, whilst also continuing to plan for 2024 with the valued support of our many partners and stakeholders.
“We will now carefully consider the details of today’s decision with our Board, our Tournament Committee and our legal advisors and take the appropriate action in due course.”
Both Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter were among the 12 LIV players appealing against the £100,000 fines.
Meanwhile, the PGA Tour remains involved in a separate anti-trust lawsuit with LIV Golf in the US.
