“They turned professional golf into an arms race, and they went around telling people they wanted to destroy the European Tour.” That is how Rory McIlroy described LIV Golf’s original mission, echoing DP World Tour chief executive Guy Kinnings, who said the Saudi-backed series had aimed to “destroy” his tour after spending more than $7 billion, according to reporting by welt.de, corroborated by isidaily.com and article.wn.com.
The comments come as the DP World Tour prepares to welcome back several of the biggest names who left for LIV Golf in 2022 — including Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Sergio Garcia — after the rival series, now stripped of Saudi investment and operating in a slimmed-down “LIV 2.0” form through insolvency proceedings, left little for players to earn there.
Kinnings: LIV’s goal was to destroy the DP World Tour
In an interview with The Scotsman, Kinnings said the tour must protect itself from “an organization that, as we were told, spent more than seven billion dollars and saw one of its goals as destroying the DP World Tour.” He said he heard that from “many different people” he has spoken with over more than 30 years in golf and whom he trusts “completely.”
“I and everyone at the DP World Tour have a duty to our members to protect our tour,” Kinnings said.
McIlroy backs Kinnings and calls LIV’s new motto ironic
McIlroy, who has been one of LIV’s most prominent critics since its 2022 launch, supported Kinnings at the Abu Dhabi Championship. “I agree with everything Guy has said,” McIlroy said. “They took players, they took sponsors, they turned professional golf into an arms race.”
McIlroy called it “ironic” that LIV Golf chief Scott O’Neil’s new motto is “complete, not compete” — meaning LIV wants to find a place in the existing golf ecosystem rather than dominate it. “That’s different from what they said at the start of the year,” McIlroy said. “After everything that happened, a lot of the guys wanted to come back and play on the DP World Tour again. I think that puts this tour in a really strong position.”
Players who stayed say they remember
Not everyone in the DP World Tour ranks is welcoming the returning LIV players. Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley said no one blames the defectors for taking Saudi money, but the problem was how they left. “Guys like Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood publicly dragged the DP World Tour through the mud,” McGinley said. “The players who stayed here have a good memory. That is not forgotten.”
Veteran Joost Luiten of the Netherlands was blunter: four years ago, he said, the DP World Tour meant nothing to these players, and bringing them back now would be “an extremely weak decision” and “absolutely unfair” to young talents grinding through qualifying school for a chance to play.
England’s Eddie Pepperell said the idea that players such as Charles Howell III, Thomas Pieters and Louis Oosthuizen should simply receive invitations was “completely bizarre,” adding that loyal DP World Tour members who fight every week for their card would feel “completely betrayed” by such preferential treatment.
How the returns will be handled
Kinnings acknowledged there is “no perfect solution” for reintegrating the former LIV players, some of whom — Garcia among them — had been sharply critical of the European Tour on their way out. He said the process must be “as fair and as merit-based as possible,” and that regardless of who the players are, “they have to prove themselves within the system.”
He also indicated that some invitations for returning LIV players could be directed at smaller DP World Tour events between February and August, a window when many of the tour’s top stars play mainly on the PGA Tour.
Why this matters now
LIV Golf’s 2022 launch, funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, fundamentally changed professional golf by luring stars off the European Tour and PGA Tour with enormous guaranteed sums. Four years on, the breakaway series is fighting for survival without Saudi backing, and the players who left are coming back — but the tour’s leadership and its loyal members are making clear that the return will be conditional, and that the damage from those four years is not forgotten.
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