Faldo: LIV players seeking DP World return may have to 'eat a bit of humble pie'
Sir Nick Faldo told BBC Sport on 25 August 2026 that LIV golfers who want to return to the DP World Tour may have to "eat a bit of humble pie" and accept starting again before regaining eligibility for the European-based circuit.
Faldo, who had 30 wins on the European Tour and is fifth on the all-time list, made the comment as LIV's 2026 season concluded last Sunday in Indianapolis after this week's cancellation of the breakaway tour's Team Championship in Michigan. He is promoting the Belfry tournament while LIV's chief executive Scott O'Neil continues to seek a $350m (£258m) investment to keep the league operating next year. Tyrrell Hatton, Tom McKibbin and Adrian Meronk are instead due to play at the Husqvarna British Masters starting on Thursday.
Hatton's actions at the Indianapolis event fuelled talk of departures after he used Queen's I Want to Break Free as his walk-on music, which was interpreted as a sign he wants to leave the tour that began in 2022. The Englishman has recent tournament wins that protect his DP World Tour status, and two-time major champion Jon Rahm also holds exemptions that would qualify him for the tour should he quit LIV.
On the likelihood of players leaving, Faldo told BBC Sport: "I'm hearing there are more players wanting to leave LIV than want to stay," and added: "How do they actually give them a route back? You know, given the way they've disrupted - go and start again. Go back to tour school. "Hey, you might have to eat a bit of humble pie and say, well, I want to be a proper golfer again, and so I've got to start back where I'm meant to be and I'll work my way up the good old way with my skills and my scoring."
The question of how potential returnees should be treated was a key item when the DP World Tour's tournament committee met on Tuesday afternoon. While the PGA Tour imposed blanket one-year bans on members who competed on LIV, the European body has taken a more nuanced approach because many leading Europeans are based in the United States; "It is a difficult jigsaw to piece together and we have to work out how to treat these players should they want to leave LIV and rejoin," said a senior tour source.
Chile's Joaquin Niemann, who amassed more than £60m in prize money on LIV, is currently ineligible for both the PGA and DP World Tours, and the status of players such as Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia could also be subject to debate. Faldo said: "We can negotiate. If a player has some form of exemption on the tour already, someone like Rahm would obviously carry it through majors and that sort of thing. "But all the other guys, you know, they did cause quite a disruption in the world of golf. You know, they were in a way invited into LIV. And that's not how golf is, is it? "We all had to do the good old Monday qualifying back in the day, 50 blooming years ago. I personally think that's the way it should be, you start again and climb the ladder."
Hatton, McKibbin and Meronk are set to compete at the Husqvarna British Masters starting on Thursday, while exciting young Spaniard Josele Ballester and American Peter Uihlein have entered the first stage of DP World Tour qualifying school at Huddersfield on 2 September.