LIV Golf rebels take charter flight for meeting with DP World Tour leader ahead of BMW Championship

One of the biggest events on the DP World Tour is set to be the latest battlefield in the ongoing war between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.

At a meeting Monday, DP Tour CEO Keith Pelley fielded questions from LIV defectors – including past European Ryder Cup team members Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, and Sergio Garcia, according to reports. 

Those four make up some of the 18 players from the Saudi-backed league that will play in the BMW PGA Championship in Surrey, England this week.

LIV has already had its impact felt across the Wentworth Club – just after the Tour wrapped up its fourth event at The International course outside of Boston. 

Following that event, a chartered plane flew from the Bay State to the UK to make the aforementioned meeting- with The Telegraph reporting the DP World Tour expected uncomfortable scenes. 

With only 10 hours between Dustin Johnson holing out for Eagle to end the LIV Boston event and the meeting the next day in England, the players all made it in time on the chartered jet.

It is claimed that in that meeting, Westwood, Garcia, Poulter and Co all tried to coerce Pelley to reveal details of the European Tour’s ‘strategic alliance’ with the PGA Tour – as well as any matters regarding sanctions placed on LIV golfers following a US circuit court ruling.  

But Pelley dug into his position – as the DP World Tour has an upcoming court case of its own with LIV players looking to overturn $100,000 fines and suspensions handed down in June.

‘KP batted well,’ a Tour player said to Telegraph Sport. ‘He stuck his ground and handled it with aplomb.’

European tour vets Ian Poulter (L) and Lee Westwood (R) joined LIV Golf earlier this year

However one LIV player felt differently about the meeting, saying Pelley’s answers weren’t always satisfactory.

‘We didn’t get in as many questions as we wanted and Keith just kept replying that “we’re in the middle of an ongoing legal case, so I can’t give you an answer”,’ the player said. 

‘He also said that the DP World Tour was a pathway to the PGA Tour, but wouldn’t say “feeder tour”. At least, his answers are down in writing now.’

The report states that Westwood did not give his opinion on the meeting, but commented on the ties between the European Tour and the PGA Tour in a Golf Digest interview last week.

One point from that interview was Westwood’s disgust with a new provision that grants PGA Tour cards to the top-10 pros at the end of the DP World Tour season. 

Poulter and Westwood have played on European Tour and both have criticized recent moves

‘I mean, what company or organization gives away its 10 best assets at the end of every year – especially to a rival or competitor?’ Westwood said. 

‘I’m not convinced by the strategic alliance because I’ve seen how the PGA Tour has behaved over the years. There’s not been much “give.” They have always been bullies.

‘I have been telling Keith and other members of his board how this is all going to go for 12 months now. I told him that getting into bed with the PGA Tour was a mistake.’

Westwood and other LIV golfers say the DP Tour should have taken a Saudi Arabian offer made back in 2021 which would have set up the European Tour as a challenger to the PGA Tour – with Saudi investment of over $1billion. 

Pelley (L) isn’t exactly taking marching orders from PGA Tour leader Jay Monahan (R) but he is using a similar tone when it comes to dealing with LIV Golf rebels

However, Pelley has commented on that offer, telling those involved back in June that the deal was ‘materially… not a good deal for the European tour…the figures were nowhere near those being bandied about in the media and in the players lounge over the past couple of months.’ 

Friction is set to only intensify later this week when the BMA PGA Championship gets underway on Thursday.  

Rory McIlroy faces an awkward reunion with some of his old Ryder Cup teammates, who have jumped ship. 

‘If you believe in something, I think you have to speak up, and I believe very strongly about this,’ said McIlroy. ‘I hate what it’s doing to the game of golf. I hate it. I really do.

‘It’s going to be hard for me to stomach going to Wentworth and seeing 18 of them there. That just doesn’t sit right with me.

‘I believe what I’m saying is the right thing, and I think when you believe that what you are saying is the right thing, you are happy to stick your neck out on the line.’

Martin Kaymer was one of 19 LIV Golf players listed in the field for the tournament this week, but the two-time major champion has decided to withdraw from the event as he insisted he does not want to play somewhere he ‘is not welcome’. 

While DP tour officials have asked LIV Golfers to refrain from wearing LIV logos on their clothes at the Wentworth Club.