LIV Golf rebels in tense exchange with DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley

The tone was set for the DP World Tour’s flagship week at a tense AGM on Monday morning when the LIV rebels – including Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio García – questioned chief executive Keith Pelley.

Eighteen players from the Saudi-funded series will play in this week’s BMW PGA Championship at the West Course and, despite it not beginning until Thursday, have already made their presence felt.

As Telegraph Sport revealed last week, the Tour anticipated uncomfortable scenes as LIV Golf chartered a plane to fly through the night from Boston to ensure that its golfers would be at the Wentworth clubhouse in time for the meeting.

Play did not finish at The International until just before midnight UK time - with Dustin Johnson holing out from 40 feet for an eagle to take the $4 million first prize and Westwood collecting more than $1m in fourth – but there they were in Surrey just over 10 hours later.

Westwood, García, Poulter and others all challenged Pelley to reveal details of “the strategic alliance” with the PGA Tour, as well as issues such as potential sanctions coming the LIV players’ way after the US circuit issued indefinite bans.

However, Pelley was able to protect himself with the court case that takes place in February, in which the renegades will seek to overturn the $100,000 fines and suspensions given out by the DP World Tour – formerly the European Tour in June.

“KP batted well,” one Tour player told Telegraph Sport. “He stuck his ground and handled it with aplomb. However a LIV player had a different interpretation of the proceedings.

“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 told Telegraph Sport. “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.”

Westwood declined to comment when asked for his opinion on the meeting, although he made his feelings about the closer ties with the PGA Tour clear in an interview with Golf Digest last week, particularly with the new relationship that will see the top 10 pros on the DP World Tour’s season-ending standings earning their PGA Tour cards..

“I mean, what company or organisation 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.”

The contention of Westwood and Co is that the Tour should have accepted an offer from Saudi Arabia in 2021 that they insist would have amounted to more than $1 billion and that could have set up Wentworth HQ as serious rivals to the American dominance.

Pelley, however, has dismissed this, informing his members in June that “materially this was not a good deal for the European Tour” and that “the figures were nowhere near those being bandied about in the media and in the players lounge over the past couple of months”. The argument has become increasingly personal and inevitably this has fuelled resentment on both sides.

Many in the loyalist locker room are angry that the LIV players have decided to appear at the $8m event in Wentworth, taking spots off lesser-ranked colleagues. A fortnight ago, Rory McIlroy said he would “struggle to stomach” seeing the rebels at Wentworth and Matt Fitzpatrick called it “awkward, abit weird and disappoiting”.

On Sunday Paul McGinley, the former Ryder Cup captain and member of the Tour board, claimed in an interview that “no golfer on the European tour wants the LIV players involved in our tournaments”, although after Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño, the seven-time Tour winner, went on Twitter to object to that comment, he was obliged to clarify that he meant “ every player past and present that I’ve spoke to”.

Tensions are high and events at the AGM are bound only to stoke the enmity. Westwood and Co have been barred from appearing in Wednesday’s pro-am and will not be among the featured groups on TV. They regard these as unnecessary slights and have vowed to go head to head again with Pelley at Tuesday evening’s player meeting.

“Keith has said he will spend the entire hour taking questions on the ‘strategic alliance’ and LIV and any other concerns,” an insider said. “The rebels might find it easier to probe for their answers in that less formal setting. It should be even spicier.”