Former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley believes it will be difficult for LIV Golf to become more closely aligned with the DP World Tour in the future should the breakaway league lose its funding. 

Discussion about the league’s future went into overdrive on Wednesday as the tour prepared for its latest event in Mexico. 

Several outlets reported that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is set to turn off the money tap at the end of the season. 

LIV Golf chief executive, Scott O’Neil, struck a bullish tone in an email that was sent to players on Tuesday, but in an interview with TNT Sports all but conceded the Saudi funding would end after this season. 

The clip has since been deleted and reposted by TNT, but it omitted the damning quotes from O’Neil. 

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There are still plenty of unanswered questions about what happens next.

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O’Neil revealed in the aforementioned interview that he will spend the next few months working “like crazy” to “create a business and a business plan to keep us going”. 

Some have previously suggested that LIV Golf may attempt to forge a deal with the European-based DP World Tour.

But McGinley told the latest edition of the Sky Sports Golf podcast that the relationship between the two circuits is not exactly amicable at this moment in time. 

“The DP World Tour is an obvious place where LIV will try to hang their hat and do an alignment with,” McGinley said. 

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“But as I said earlier, this is not going to be an easy fix back in again. First of all, to get the players molded back in again. 

“But remember, LIV have been a very hostile competitor to the DP World Tour and the rest of the world. 

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“They’ve taken a lot of sponsors away from the DP World Tour in the last four years and put them on LIV. 

“You know, they’re down tens of millions of dollars, the European Tour, in terms of what they had before LIV came onto the scene. 

“So, you know, and there’s a lot of claims that are going out about them being the ‘World Tour’ and all that kind of thing. 

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“And it’s been somewhat disrespectful to the DP World Tour. 

“So, you know, it’s not — I think it’s fair to say relations are not amicable at the moment, and a lot of negotiation will have to be made if there is going to be any kind of alignment with the DP World Tour, never mind with the PGA Tour.”

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McGinley, who also claimed the ‘writing is on the wall for LIV Golf’, believes it won’t be straight-forward for players from the breakaway tour to hop back over to the DP and PGA Tours if the league is shut down. 

Although a precedent has been set with the returns of Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, McGinley believes the LIV players shouldn’t expect to “muscle their way back in”. 

“There’s a lot of roadblocks in the way,” he added. 

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“There will be suspensions, there will be fines — all the kind of things that have been talked about for the last few years will have to remain in place in order to be equitable and fair to the guys who remained with the main tours over the last four years. 

“So there’s a lot of negotiation, let’s call it that, to be done between the tours and the LIV players if LIV is going to fold in terms of what the future may be. But it’s not going to be plain sailing for the LIV guys, I can assure you that.”

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