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McIlroy backs DP World Tour's LIV 2.0 ban as LIV objects in court
Rory McIlroy says the tour was right to refuse 2027 membership to players who sign for LIV 2.0, a day after saying he would vote to let LIV players back onto the PGA TOUR.
Rory McIlroy has come out in support of the DP World Tour’s rule that anyone who signs for LIV 2.0 cannot be a member in 2027. “I think the DP World Tour have made a good decision,” he said in Delhi on Wednesday, before the DP World India Championship. On the same day, in a bankruptcy court in New Jersey, LIV’s lawyer told the judge the rule was an attempt to interfere with the league’s restructuring.
McIlroy said the tour had a right to change its regulations to protect its business. Every member, he said, signs a document each year agreeing to abide by them. He will sign the DP World Tour’s before the Australian Open, which opens the tour’s 2027 season, and the PGA TOUR’s before his first event in America.
“LIV is in such a state of flux that, you know, I think the DP World Tour have been more than accommodating to LIV players,” he said. He acknowledged that some of them had been made to play extra events this year as a condition of keeping their membership. McIlroy said the ban had always been coming after four or five years in which the game kept changing. “It’s now got to the point where guys are going to have to make a decision,” he said.
On Tuesday, speaking at a Bloomberg conference in the same city, McIlroy had said he would vote to invite LIV’s leading players back to the PGA TOUR, because their return would raise revenues for everyone. The DP World Tour’s rule shuts out players who commit to the relaunched league. The tour has set out a separate process for players leaving LIV, some of whom could be offered invitations next season.
The 2027 membership form includes a pledge to stay out of LIV 2.0, and the deadline for returning it is 16 November. LIV wants its players signed up by 25 October, though BC Partners Credit, which is funding the relaunch, can move that date.
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