VIRGINIA WATER, England — The DP World Tour has threatened Spain’s Sergio Garcia with “appropriate action” after he failed to pay a 100,000 pound ($126,000) fine imposed by a sports arbitration panel within 30 days for playing in a LIV Golf event.
The DP World Tour, formerly known as the European Tour, last month won its legal battle to be able to suspend and fine LIV Golf players who competed in conflicting events without permission.
Garcia, the tour said, has not paid “nor has he given any indication that he intends to.”
The tour said it will take “appropriate action” if Garcia continues to ignore the sanction.
“We will therefore take appropriate action if he continues not to respect the Sport Resolutions panel’s decision,” added the Tour in a statement.
The penalties were originally applied because members played in LIV’s 2022 tournaments either in England or Oregon without being given permission – a release – by the Tour.
The Sports Resolutions panel said the golfers in question “committed serious breaches of the code of behaviour” of the DP World Tour.
Garcia was one of four players – along with Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Richard Bland – who resigned from the European tour following last month’s ruling by Sport Resolutions that a number of players committed serious breaches of the tour´s code of behavior by playing in LIV Golf events last year.
Westwood, Poulter and Bland all paid their fines, the tour said.
Following the DP World Tour’s fine and suspension of 16 members who fled to the fledgling LIV league last June for the inaugural LIV Golf event in London, a group of players led by Poulter, Adrian Otaegui and Justin Harding filed an appeal against the DP World Tour.
The LIV members were granted an injunction to enter the Genesis Scottish Open, pending a full hearing before a UK arbitration panel in February, in which LIV players like Westwood and Patrick Reed testified.
However, the DP World Tour ultimately won the legal battle in April, with the panel upholding the former European Tour’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breached it.
The 16 players that did pay the fine were Bland, Westwood, Reed, Harding, Otaegui, Poulter, Laurie Canter, Branden Grace, Sam Horsfield, Martin Kaymer, Pablo Larrazabal, Graeme McDowell, Shaun Norris, Wade Ormsby, Charl Schwartzel and Bernd Wiesberger.
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