Lee Westwood says LIV players without DPWT status should go to Q School

Lee Westwood says LIV Golf players who still hold DP World Tour exemptions should be free to come back, and everyone else should earn a card at qualifying school. The 25-time DP World Tour winner, one of LIV's first signings in 2022, made the case in a reply on X late Friday, October 23.

He was answering Ewen Ferguson. The three-time DP World Tour winner had posted that it was "actually cool" to see some good LIV players return, but "hilarious how some of them slammed the tour for so long" and now say it "feels like coming home."

What Westwood wrote

Westwood called it "an interesting position" for the tour. He said it is caught between needing "names" from January through June, when fields are weaker, and "giving invites to people who have shown no interest in the tour other than now when they've nowhere else to play," while also keeping happy the members who play the smaller events and the players who came through every qualifying stage.

"Anyone with an exemption should be free to come back because as we know the DPWT endorses members going to another rival tour and already have 10 cards for it," he wrote, "but if people don't have an exemption they should have to go through the school like everyone else."

He also took a shot at the tour's partnership with the PGA Tour. "Anyone that thinks the PGA tour aren't rivals and are partners are either blind or fools," Westwood wrote. "Yes they provide funding now but to what end and at what cost to the DPWT? The end of 2027 will be interesting as to what assets they ask for." HITC and EssentiallySports both carried the full post on Saturday.

Where it fits

Westwood's line about exemptions lines up with what DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings has said: players with status can return, and the rest need Q School or an invitation arrangement. It also cuts against invites for players without status, the same point Eddie Pepperell made on Saturday about Charles Howell III and others.

What to watch

LIV's deadline for players to commit to 2027 is Sunday, October 25. If more players leave without DP World Tour status, watch whether the tour publishes its invitation terms, and whether they match Westwood's Q School line or the wider invites Pepperell and Ferguson are pushing back on.