MCKIBBIN GRANTED LIV RELEASE, RAHM’S RYDER CUP STILL IN DOUBT
Tom McKibbin was one of eight DP World Tour members to be granted permission to play in conflicting tournaments on LIV Golf for the 2026 season (Photo: Getty)
Tom McKibbin was one of eight DP World Tour members to be granted permission to play in conflicting tournaments on LIV Golf for the 2026 season while Jon Rahm’s route remains a more complicated issue.
McKibbin was named alongside Tyrrell Hatton, Laurie Canter, Thomas Detry, Adrian Meronk, Victor Perez, David Puig and Elvis Smylie as the eight players granted conditional release for the 2026 season only.
A statement from the DP World Tour said: “Each member has accepted the conditions specified by the DP World Tour for their release, which include: Payment in full of all outstanding fines for breaches of the DP World Tour’s Regulations” plus “participation in additional stipulated DP World Tour tournaments, associated media activity and promotion” and the “withdrawal of all pending appeals.”
“The conditions these members have accepted will provide additional value to the DP World Tour and benefit to the entire membership. Provided each member satisfies the conditions of their individual releases, no disciplinary action under the regulations will be taken against them for playing in conflicting tournaments on LIV Golf in 2026 and they will retain their membership status.”
The tour statement added: “The releases apply for the 2026 season only and they are not precedent setting. Requests for releases will continue to be considered on their individual merits in accordance with the regulations that all members agree to abide by.
The situation appears to be different for Ryder Cup hero Rahm, who said before that he had “no intention” of paying DP World Tour fines for playing in LIV events without permission. McKibbin is part of Rahm’s Legion XIII team that won the team event in the LIV Golf circuit in 2025.
Rahm’s stance arguably gives the DP World Tour a real Ryder Cup headache as a player that would likely feature and be one of the leading figures in the team room when the biennial team event is played at Adare Manor in Limerick, Ireland in September 2027. It remains to be seen if the powers that be at the Tour and Rahm can find a solution to the rift.
Both Rahm and Hatton appealed against sanctions in 2024, and this afforded them the chance to play in enough DP World Tour events to retain their membership and therefore eligible for last year’s raucous European Ryder Cup victory over the Americans on their own patch at Bethpage Black in New York.
The fines in questions are believed to be around £2.5million.