DP World Tour chief executive Guy Kinnings insists Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton will not be exploiting a “loophole” to remain eligible for the Ryder Cup.
Rory McIlroy’s immediate reaction to Rahm joining LIV Golf in December was to call for the rules to be rewritten to ensure the two-time major champion could represent Europe at Bethpage in 2025.
McIlroy later admitted the rules did not need to be changed as Rahm and Hatton were eligible as long as they maintained their DP World Tour memberships by playing four regular events per season.
The pair will also earn points towards qualification through major championships, but face fines and suspensions for playing in LIV tournaments without the required “conflicting event” releases.
However, it was not widely understood that suspensions are automatically applied to the next DP World Tour event for which the player is eligible and for which entries are still open, even if they had no intention of playing that event.
“It’s not a loophole because that’s the rules we’ve always had and those are the rules we are going to continue to apply,” Kinnings said.
“All suspensions will count and you have to serve them. And the guys who’ve analysed this in detail have said if they do it the right way, there is no reason why they can’t play in the Ryder Cup.
“We’re not going to change anything on that basis. Rules are rules and they apply for every member. We’re not in a position to be changing rules that we’ve had to go to court to defend.”
In April 2023, an arbitration panel ruled that the Tour had the right to sanction players for “serious breaches” of its code of behaviour, a case sparked by 12 players appealing against fines of £100,000 and suspension from the Scottish Open for playing LIV’s inaugural event in June 2022.
Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood resigned their memberships in the wake of the arbitration panel’s decision, while Henrik Stenson was sacked as Ryder Cup captain after joining the Saudi-funded breakaway.
Asked if such players were aware of how the tournament suspensions worked, Kinnings added: “I have no idea what they thought.
“To be perfectly honest, this isn’t new news because, as you know, I had an extremely thorough Ryder Cup captain and a brilliant assistant.
“For the last Ryder Cup they were analysing every player who was eligible and that was players on whatever Tour they were on.
“And had certain players played well enough, like Brooks [Koepka] did, then they could have been in the Ryder Cup team. As it is, they didn’t.”
Koepka, who finished second in the 2023 Masters and won the US PGA Championship the following month, slipped out of the automatic qualifying places in the final event but was given a wild card by United States captain Zach Johnson.
It is understood that the DP World Tour’s members handbook does not go into specifics of suspensions as they are assessed on a case by case basis, but that sanction letters sent to players do make it clear from which tournaments they will be suspended.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here