Garcia, Westwood and fellow LIV rebels 'INELIGIBLE for the Ryder Cup'

Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and fellow rebels who left the World Tour ‘are still INELIGIBLE for the Ryder Cup’ despite PGA and LIV merger

  • The PGA and LIV announced shocking plans to merge on Tuesday morning
  • But players in the Saudi-backed league are not yet in the clear in the sport
  • DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news

Despite the bombshell merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, nine golfers who resigned their DP World Tour memberships to join the Saudi-backed league will remain ineligible for the Ryder Cup later this year.

On Tuesday, the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and rival LIV stunningly ended their bitter two-year dispute and announced an agreement to merge and form one unified commercial entity.

However, the process for LIV defectors to be reinstated won’t begin until after the 2023 season is complete, meaning high-profile names such as Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter will have to wait to return to the Ryder Cup.

‘There have been several suggestions that with the joint commitment to end further litigation between the parties, this also means our sanctions against players who broke our Regulations will be waived,’ DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley wrote in a memo to players obtained by ESPN on Wednesday. 

DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley said in a memo obtained by ESPN that players who resigned their World Tour memberships to join LIV will be ineligible for this year’s Ryder Cup

That list includes Sergio Garcia, one of nine golfers who gave up the DP World Tour status

‘That is not the case. The suspensions and fines previously imposed remain effective.’

A ruling by the Sport Resolutions panel in April found that the World Tour was within its rights to ban players such as Garcia, Westwood and Poulter from the Ryder Cup for participating in the Saudi-funded league.

Paul Casey, Henrik Stenson, Richard Bland, Martin Kaymer, Dean Burmester and Abraham Ancer also resigned from the DP World Tour and will therefore remain ineligible for this year’s Ryder Cup.

The tournament is scheduled for September 29 to October 1 at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club outside Rome.

According to the memo Pelley wrote, players who resigned and wanted reinstatement needed to notify the DP World Tour by May 1, but none of them did so.

While the merger ends the ongoing litigation between the PGA and LIV, that doesn’t mean that tensions will be over in the sport.


Lee Westwood (L) and Ian Poulter were also among those to resign World Tour memberships

PGA AND LIV IN SHOCK MERGER

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PGA commissioner Jay Monahan hails ‘momentous day’ in letter to Tour members after agreeing shock merger with rivals LIV Golf… as he insists the sport and its players will ‘benefit for years to come’

‘Rory is down so bad right now!’: Social media pokes fun at McIlroy for ‘turning down $300MILLION just to work for the Saudis for free for one year’ after shock announcement that the PGA tour and LIV Golf are MERGING

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They must be sick! How stunned PGA loyalists turned down MILLIONS to snub controversial LIV Golf breakaway, with Tiger Woods rejecting almost £700m and Rory McIlroy declining £400m

LIV Golf star Phil Mickelson delights in ‘awesome day’ after rebel circuit announces merger with traditional circuit – while the PGA Tour’s Jay Monahan is blasted

Brooks Koepka savages NBC and LIV Golf critic Brandel Chamblee after PGA and Saudi-backed series merger, asking for a ‘welfare check’ on analyst

PGA Tour sensationally MERGES with rival LIV Golf in major win for the Saudis, gloating Trump, and the players who pocketed MILLIONS – as loyal PGA golfers are left to find out by LETTER 

OLIVER HOLT: A penny for the thoughts of some of the high-profile golfers who resisted the riches on offer from LIV because PGA chief Jay Monahan told them they owed it to the game not to defect

How LIV won golf’s bitter civil war: Saudi billions captured PGA’s biggest names before stunning deal was struck after rebels like Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson were pitted against Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods

Saudis BUY golf: Stunning deal sees LIV join forces with PGA and DP World Tours and pump in £1bn to help the new collaboration

The day golf changed for ever: Saudis bankroll shock deal with PGA and DP World Tours after toxic year as LIV rebels are welcomed back… with Amanda Staveley’s role proving key

LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman ‘NOT expected to have a role in the PGA Tour merger’ and the rebel series chief only found out MINUTES before the deal was announced

REVEALED: PGA Tour golfers ‘call for chief Jay Monahan to step down’ in ‘contentious’ players meeting after he kept McIlroy, Woods and Co. in the dark for seven weeks over shock LIV merger 

Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy were kept in the dark about the secret deal to end golf’s civil war until the DAY it was announced, reveals Jay Monahan as pressure mounts on the PGA Tour chief after his U-turn 

Grab the popcorn! Netflix’s ‘Full Swing’ was filming as the news broke of the PGA Tour’s shock merger with LIV Golf, confirms producer, with season 2 set to capture all the dramatic fallout

‘A good day to have a good day’: LIV Golf star Brooks Koepka’s wife Jena Sims revels in Saudi takeover of golf after her husband earned £100m+ by joining rebel tour before shock merger

Rory McIlroy ‘is told to “F*** OFF” by a fellow PGA Tour golfer during an explosive meeting’ hours after the bombshell merger with Saudi-backed LIV was announced 

PICTURED: Rory McIlroy looks GLUM as he is seen for the first time since controversial PGA-LIV Golf merger, as the vocal critic of the Saudi-backed tour plays in the Pro AM in Canada

Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and fellow rebels who left the World Tour ‘are still INELIGIBLE for the Ryder Cup’ despite PGA and LIV merger

For one, players like Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama turned down eye-watering sums from LIV Golf to remain loyal to the PGA Tour only to see the Tours merge.

Those players, and others, will be forced to grapple with defectors like Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau eventually being reinstated.

Additionally, PGA commissioner Jay Monahan said less than a year ago that a possible merger with LIV was ‘off the table.’

So PGA members were unsurprisingly stunned to learn about the news – which they first saw on Twitter.

‘Shocked and confused,’ one unidentified golfer told Barstool’s Dan Rapaport.

‘Disgusted,’ another said. ‘They didn’t tell us anything.’

Victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack also ripped the PGA’s decision to merge with LIV Golf, while calling out Saudi Arabia’s role in the tragedy.

One group, 9/11 Families United, released a statement condemning the merger, saying its members are ‘shocked and deeply offended.’

‘PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sportswashing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation,’ said chairman Terry Strada, whose husband died in the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

In 2022, while sympathizing with 9/11 families, Monahan seemed to be staunchly against any merger with LIV Golf.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan wrote a memo to players on Tuesday (pictured)

‘I think you’d have to be living under a rock to not know there are significant implications and as it relates to the families of 9/11—I have two families that are close to me that lost loved ones,’ Moynahan told CBS in 2022.

The 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 terrorists, including 15 Saudi nationals. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was also born in Saudi Arabia.

LIV Golf has been slammed for its ties to Saudi Arabia’s controversial Public Investment Fund (PIF), with critics accusing the kingdom of ‘sportswashing’ its human rights record. LIV defectors, meanwhile, have been pilloried over allegations of greed.

LIV Golf is heavily funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, which has committed at least $2billion to the circuit.

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