\t\t\t\tThe DP World Tour has announced a new agreement with eight LIV golfers \u2013 but could the deal have a damaging impact? One of its players thinks so\u2026<\/p>\n
Eddie Pepperell is concerned that the DP World Tour\u2019s new deal with eight LIV Golf players<\/a> could have \u201cdisastrous\u201d consequences for the circuit. <\/p>\n Following prolonged talks with individual members, LIV stars including Tyrrell Hatton and Laurie Canter will be granted conditional releases for their starts on the breakaway league this season. The eight players have agreed to settle any outstanding sanctions and compete in additional stipulated Tour events so they can play freely on LIV without racking up fines and suspensions.<\/p>\n Jon Rahm was the only LIV player to reject this offer, leaving his Ryder Cup future in further jeopardy<\/a>. <\/p>\n Speaking on The Chipping Forecast<\/a> podcast, Pepperell conceded that bosses at Wentworth HQ have a difficult juggling act to appease the LIV players who provide commercial value to the tour and the rest of the playing membership. But the Englishman is still worried that this peace offering could lead to a further talent drain to LIV.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it is indeed deemed in any way the perception from the membership that this is too soft and these players are now able to have their cake and eat it effectively, the DP World Tour runs the risk of losing two to three players at the end of the season the way they lost Elvis Smylie,\u201d Pepperell explained.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only are we bleeding players to the PGA Tour, we\u2019re now going to be potentially bleeding more players across to LIV, which I think would be disastrous for the DP World Tour. They have to think about that, I think they will be thinking about that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Tour has stressed that they will evaluate individual requests beyond 2026, so there is no guarantee players who plan to move to LIV next season would be able to benefit from the same deal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe releases apply for the 2026 season only and they are not precedent-setting,\u201d the Tour\u2019s statement read. \u201cRequests for releases will continue to be considered on their individual merits in accordance with the Regulations that all members agree to abide by.\u201d<\/p>\n Pepperell, however, still seems concerned about the direction of travel.<\/p>\n \u201cThere needs to be a disincentive,\u201d he added. \u201cThere needs to be a deterrent in place to stop this moving across to LIV at will at the end of the year. You think of young players like Angel Ayora. He is very much on Sergio Garcia\u2019s radar and has been for a couple of years. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a super talent and he\u2019s the kind of guy the tour\u2019s going to lose in one direction or other, the PGA Tour or LIV Golf. It isn\u2019t a satisfactory outcome under any scenario for the DP World Tour but nonetheless it\u2019s going to happen so the DP World Tour has to decide where we would rather lose that player to. I would still rather them go to America and play on the PGA Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n In Ayora\u2019s case, it is likely Pepperell will get his desired outcome. The Spaniard told TG last month that he has rejected LIV\u2019s advances<\/a> because he dreams of playing in the biggest tournament Stateside. He has a strong chance of earning one of the 10 PGA Tour cards available to non-exempt DP World Tour players this season.<\/p>\n Like this article? See more TG content in your feed! Click here to add Today\u2019s Golfer as a preferred source on Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cLots of things to consider and it\u2019s a very difficult balance to get right for [DP World Tour chief executive] Guy Kinnings and the team,\u201d Pepperell added. <\/p>\n While discussing the fallout of the agreement, Pepperell also suggested that this deal for LIV members could act a sweetener from the DP World Tour ahead of a possible alignment between the rival tours.<\/p>\n \u201cI wonder if the DP World Tour are just trying to curry favor with LIV to some degree to enable this next six months to pass before negotiations can be had on either side,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause if the DP World Tour isn\u2019t able to cement something akin to what it did five years ago [the Strategic Alliance with the PGA Tour<\/a>], then it\u2019s quite possible that the DP World Tour could be looking at partnering up or moving more closely in line with LIV Golf. This is one step in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Pepperell also weighed in on the increasingly awkward Rahm situation.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the interesting thing, if it is more simple than we\u2019re making it out and this is about ego and Jon willing to pay, I would say fine you lose your membership, you\u2019re not part of the Ryder Cup,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Ryder Cup is far bigger than one player \u2013 including Jon Rahm. Tyrrell Hatton has shown he is willing to pay his fines to play not just in the Ryder Cup but in DP World Tour events and Jon hasn\u2019t. That reflects most poorly on Jon Rahm in my opinion \u2013 if indeed it is that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The DP World Tour has announced a new agreement with eight LIV golfers \u2013 but could the deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-444923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444923","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=444923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}