Lee Westwood delivers stark warning over DP World Tour’s future as PGA Tour told to ‘play hardball’

Former LIV star Lee Westwood has admitted he is worried about the future of the DP World Tour following the news that the breakaway tour is winding down.

Westwood has spent the previous four years playing on LIV Golf, but he now finds himself without a tour to play on in 2027, jokingly referring to himself as “unemployed” when speaking on the Chipping Forecast podcast this week.

While the demise of LIV Golf could prove to be good news for both the PGA Tour and DPWT, the former Ryder Cup hero suggests the European circuit could be in a vulnerable position.

"LIV going out of business, some people will be disappointed and it might not be people that you immediately think of," Westwood said in an interview with BBC Sport.

"The European tour, I'm not sure it's such a big win for them."

While playing on the PGA Tour was banned for LIV players, that wasn’t the case on the DPWT, giving the tour some form of “leverage” according to Westwood.

Despite that, both tours extended their strategic alliance. The American circuit even made an annual investment payment of £59m last year to the DPWT.

If that is to continue from 2027 and beyond, however, Westwood believes the PGA Tour should be asking big questions.

"If [the DP World Tour] want to continue having the PGA Tour bankrolling them, there are going to be some big asks from the PGA Tour," said the 53-year-old.

"If I was [chief executive] Brian Rolapp running the PGA Tour, I would be playing hardball and making a lot of demands of the European tour if they expected me to finance it going forward."

Westwood has been a busy man this week as he also took a swipe at a former Ryder Cup teammate over LIV Golf criticisms.

Lee Westwood takes swipe at Rory McIlroy 

Rory McIlroy spoke ahead of the Abu Dhabi Championship this week and stated that he agreed with Guy Kinnings’ assessment that LIV Golf “wanted to destroy the DP World Tour.”

Westwood wasn’t having any of it, though, explaining that the Northern Irishman was simply repeating what Kinnings had said.

"I don't really see Rory too much, but he was just regurgitating what Kinnings had said in his statement about LIV wanting to kill the DP World Tour," Westwood told talkSPORT.

"By the way, I've never heard any players that play on LIV say that they want to kill the European Tour. Why would they do that?

"Most of the players that played on LIV were actually playing on the European Tour as well. It was one of their main sources for world ranking points.

"So why would you want to kill a tour that you were filling up your schedule on? I don't know."

LIV Golf may be no more, but controversy over the breakaway tour appears to be rumbling on from those on both sides of the divide.