Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have opened up on settling their DP World Tour fines and the future of their embattled league.

Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter have explained why they have both paid million-dollar fines with the DP World Tour as uncertainty grows over LIV Golf’s future.

The duo have cleared a pathway to the rejoin European circuit by settling their outstanding sanctions imposed for breaking the circuit’s Conflicting Tournament Regulation for playing LIV events.

Those fines were originally covered by LIV Golf until 2025, but Poulter and Westwood have now settled up with their former longtime domain after initially stressing that the punishments were unfair. “I’m not paying them because I disagree with the way they’ve been handed out,” Westwood said last year.

Now though, with an increasingly precarious backdrop after LIV lost its multi-billion dollar funding from the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Ryder Cup stalwarts have made U-turns.

“What it does is gives us options having them paid,” Westwood said at JCB Golf & Country Club, where LIV returns from a seven-week hiatus this week. “When the current financial backers of the tour are talking about pulling out and we’re being indemnified, it just makes sense to get them paid straight away before they do pull out. That’s really why we had them paid when we did.

“But I still don’t agree with the fines because we are being completely treated differently to the people playing on this tour. I think the fines were excessive when you consider what other people did and how much they got fined historically.”

Both Westwood and Poulter believe they have not been treated by the DP World Tour in the same way as Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm. The Englishmen were sanctioned from the inaugural LIV tournament in June 2022 until they resigned their memberships in May, 2023. Their resignations came after losing a case heard by a Sports Resolutions panel, who determined the penalties imposed on them were fair and proportionate.

Rahm and Hatton, meanwhile, both starred in last year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage while awaiting their own appeal against their fines. That appeal was never heard after a deal was reached with Rahm, Hatton and six other DP World Tour members who play on the LIV league to play conflicting events without being sanctioned.

“The fines were always going to be paid at some point, and that was down to myself and Lee to choose when that time was right,” Poulter said. “The European Tour and LIV Golf and the acceptance of it all, it’s all in a very different position today than what it was four years ago when we were being fined the way we were.

“There are no fines in place today for guys that are playing on LIV Golf, and that’s a massive change. When you look certainly how Jon and Tyrrell were treated back in the day, to still be able to play European Tour golf and play in Ryder Cups.”

Poulter says he’s unsure how many DP World Tour events he plans to play in the future.

“I’m still hopeful that things work out in the right way for me to play a number of different tournaments at different times,” he added.

Poulter, who made his debut at the US Senior Open last month, says he is frustrated that the legends category he would return to on the DP World Tour has been downgraded by the Tour. Players in the top 40 on the circuit’s career money list who had fulfilled four or more other criteria have been moved to a category that guarantees fewer exemptions into the biggest tournaments.

“My exemptions are being burned year in, year out right now which is unfortunate because they took the opportunity in November, if you didn’t rejoin they would reduce your exemption year in, year out,” Poulter said. “It’s a shame they did that. It’s a shame they devalued the legends category from 5A to 11A, which isn’t helpful to get in some certain tournaments.

“If some of the tournaments directors would really like me to go and play in their tournament and it doesn’t compete, they know my number. I’ve played those tournaments before.

“If they want to give me a call, then let’s have a chat.”

Despite planning to recover their DP World Tour memberships, the Ryder Cup is still out of the equation for both Westwood and Poulter. Long before LIV’s emergence, the DP World Tour created a rule that means any golfer who has given up their membership for any reason cannot be considered for European captaincy or vice-captaincy in the biennial showdown.