The Impact of LIV Golf No Longer Paying DP World Tour Fines

A day before LIV Golf UK tees it up in England, some interesting news broke via the Telegraph: the Saudi-backed league will no longer pay DP World Tour fines for its players after this year. At face value, this may not seem substantive, but let’s hop on the train to Speculation Station and dive in.

An optimist may say this move could point toward long-rumored unification and that fines won’t be necessary anymore. Or, if you really want to get stuck in a tin foil hat, as suggested by an anonymous source in the Telegraph, maybe the DP World Tour plays the ultimate UNO reverse card and breaks its strategic alliance with the PGA Tour and goes all-in with LIV.

A realist would argue this is just another way LIV is charting its own path forward and the pro game is no closer to reunification than it was when the breakaway league entered the fray three years ago. In that time, the Telegraph reported LIV has paid more than $20 million, with a potential for roughly $10 million more in outstanding fines. After spending a billion dollars on this stalled project, you might think a few extra million to keep your best players happy would be worth the investment. While LIV continues to dole out heaps of money at each event, the league has cut a lot of its spending over the last two years, particularly in the player and production departments.

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The short-term ramifications are few and far between, as this won’t impact the 2025 match at Bethpage Black in September, but the long-term repercussions could be devastating for both the league and the European Ryder Cup team. If players are forced to pay their own fines – something Jon Rahm reportedly has “no intention” of doing – that would only further hamper LIV’s ability to sign top talent, something they haven’t been able to do since inking Rahm’s signature in 2023. As for the Ryder Cup, European players must be DP World Tour members to be eligible for qualification or selection. If both the league and its players don’t pay fines, an uncomfortable game of chicken is sure to follow.

If the DP World Tour stands its ground, the 2027 team in Ireland could be without a handful of its best players if they don’t pay their own way. On the flip side, “There would be outrage if the (DP World Tour) caved in,” an insider told the Telegraph. “The point is that the (DP World Tour) fully expected the peace negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Saudis to have been settled by now, so they kicked this can down the road happy in the belief it wouldn’t matter. But with no deal in the pipeline – anything but, in fact – there is a huge problem looming.”

Given their past praise of the biennial bash against the Americans, I would be shocked if the likes of Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton didn’t pony up their own fines to keep DP World Tour membership. Rahm has already overplayed his hand and misunderstood his influence in the game once, and I just don’t see any legitimate contender for the European squad standing on principle when the time comes in 2027.