Every LIV player has paid £100,000 fine ... except Sergio Garcia
Almost all players fined for leaving DP World Tour for LIV have paid their fines.
In the ongoing schism between LIV Golf and the golf establishment, the many LIV-jumpers have taken widely divergent paths away from their prior tours. Some appear to be holding out hope that some kind of reconciliation is possible. Some have filed suit against their former touring homes. Some have simply resigned from their former tours. Some have paid fines levied against them, effectively ending what — for all sides — had been a successful partnership.
And then there's Sergio Garcia.
Last summer, the DP World Tour — the former European Tour — fined 17 players who competed in LIV events without a release from the tour. In April, a United Kingdom-based arbitration panel known as Sports Resolutions ruled in favor of the DP World Tour, meaning the players were subject to fines of £100,000 — about $126,000 — for their defections.
According to DP, the 16 players who paid the fine include Richard Bland, Laurie Canter, Branden Grace, Justin Harding, Sam Horsfield, Martin Kaymer, Pablo Larrazabal, Graeme McDowell, Shaun Norris, Wade Ormsby, Adrian Otaegui, Ian Poulter, Patrick Reed, Charl Schwartzel, Lee Westwood and Bernd Wiesberger.
The one player who has not? Garcia. He joined Westwood, Bland and Poulter in formally resigning from the DP World Tour earlier this week.
"Sergio Garcia has not paid his £100,000 fine, nor has he given any indication that he intends to," the DP World Tour said in the statement. "We will therefore take appropriate action if he continues not to respect the Sport Resolutions panel’s decision."
Garcia can probably afford the fine; for a runner-up finish at last week's LIV Golf event in Singapore, he took home a cool $2.25 million.
