{"id":229092,"date":"2025-10-28T00:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/229092\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T00:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:09:11","slug":"ill-retire-before-paying-dp-world-tour-fines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/229092\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ll retire before paying DP World Tour fines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tRichard Bland has retained his slot on LIV Golf for at least one more year. After that, his options look rather scarce\u2026<\/p>\n

Richard Bland says he has no intention of paying his DP World Tour fines as he instead looks to bow out of the game on his own terms.<\/p>\n

The Englishman has not done anything the easy way. He famously needed 478 attempts to finally win a DP World Tour title when he lifted the trophy at the British Masters in 2021. A few months later, he was playing in the WGC-Match Play \u2013 a tournament for which he had qualified thanks to a runner-up finish at the Dubai Desert Classic that had lifted him into the top 50 in the world \u2013 when everything started to change.<\/p>\n

Bland was playing against Lee Westwood at the now defunct event when his compatriot asked him if he had been approached by a start-up tour called LIV Golf.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy on earth would they want to talk to me?\u201d Bland told TG. \u201cBut he said, \u2018Blandy, you\u2019re top 60 in the world, they\u2019re going to want to talk to you.\u2019 Sure enough, the guy who was looking after a few things for me started the conversation and they offered me a spot at the first event at Centurion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bland has since become a regular on Martin Kaymer\u2019s Cleeks team and has banked more than $17 million in four years<\/a> on the league.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long way from the player who was still living at home at 29 because he refused to buy a property until he knew he could afford it.<\/p>\n

\"Richard<\/p>\n

But even with all these newfound riches, Bland said he won\u2019t be returning to DP World Tour-sanctioned events \u2013 including the seniors circuit, on which he is a two-time major champion \u2013 mainly because he has no intention of doing what needs to be done to make that happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m banned pretty much everywhere else bar LIV,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t play the Legends Tour because of the money that I owe in fines \u2013 which I\u2019m not going to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not the only issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking to guys that I know and grew up playing with, that tour is quite tough,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou play a lot of pro-ams and, while I don\u2019t want this to come across the wrong way, I don\u2019t particularly want to go back to playing tournaments that are worth \u20ac300,000. I\u2019m not going to get excited by that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Bland seems quite happy to pack it all in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like nicotine, isn\u2019t it?\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife tells me I\u2019ll never retire. But I know the end is getting closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done quite well on LIV, but it hasn\u2019t changed who I am. All it\u2019s done is afford me the chance to call it quits on my terms. I haven\u2019t got to worry too much about my future now. I don\u2019t need to go and do something else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to retire from the game. I don\u2019t want the game to retire me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut do I see myself playing competitively five years from now? No, I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Bland was talking to TG\u2019s Michael Catling. You can read the full interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Bland has retained his slot on LIV Golf for at least one more year. After that, his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-229092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}