Why Are So Many LIV Golfers Playing in The Dunhill Links

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

If you have a spare minute or two, check out the field for this week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. If you do so, I am pretty certain that, like me, you may find yourself doing something of a double take. I am utterly bewildered.

It has been well reported that Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have appealed against the fines and suspensions imposed upon them by the DP World Tour after they signed on the dotted line for LIV Golf. 

While they wait for their appeals to be heard they are free to compete without any financial penalty. It is a peculiarity that has left many golf fans utterly bemused, myself included. 

No date has yet been set for those appeals to be heard but it would be a huge surprise if they do not rule in favour of the DP World Tour. That would mean the players would be ordered to pay up in order to compete and, having launched a legal process, would they be prepared to do so?

What makes this all the more difficult to fathom is that when Martin Kaymer competed at the BMW International Open in his homeland of Germany this year he first had to pay his outstanding fines. And Thomas Pieters was forced to do the same thing to compete in Belgium.

It seems that the goalposts keep moving. And if you are a high-profile golfer such as Rahm it seems that they are being moved in his favour to allow him to compete in the Ryder Cup next year.

It has been widely reported that LIV Golf actually approached the DP World Tour and offered to pay Rahm’s outstanding fines. They were given short shrift.

I wonder how those reports made Laurie Canter feel. He joined LIV but it all ended in tears. He decided to put his disappointment behind him by rejoining the DP World Tour and duly paid his fines in full and was rewarded earlier this year when he won the European Open.

What I simply do not get is the presence at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns this week of LIV golfers such as Brooks Koepka, Talor Gooch, Patrick Reed, Louis Oosthuizen, Peter Uihlein, Dean Burmester and Branden Grace.

Like most of you, I want to see unity in our sport. The split does nobody any good (apart from those who have picked up mind-blowing signing-on fees from LIV). With most LIV golfers tumbling down the world rankings, it means that many of them are no longer eligible to play in the sport’s majors. And that cannot be good for our sport and those who follow it. 

TV ratings for golf in the USA have fallen off a cliff in 2024 and there is no doubt whatsoever that much of this has to do with the rift. Golf fans have had enough.

Koepka and company will collect ranking points this week. The rights and wrongs of that are for somebody else to debate. 

My question is this: why are these golfers being allowed to tee it up in what is one of the DP World Tour’s flagship events, thus denying places in the field for golfers who may need it rather more badly than they do?

It turns out that they have all been given sponsor’s invites to compete. How does this make any sense?

You might be forgiven for thinking that they will have to pay some sort of financial penalty in order to compete. You would be wrong.

I do wonder how the rank-and-file members of the DP World Tour feel about all of this. And just imagine the reaction if one of them were to pick up on the trophy on Sunday afternoon - something that is well within the realms of probability.

I am willing to wager a substantial sum that we are going to be reading plenty about this anomaly in the coming days.

And what does Guy Kinnings, in his first year as chief executive of the DP World Tour, think about it all? I am pretty certain that he would not have chosen to have the LIV players in the field this week but he has sponsors to keep happy and they call the tune.