After two largely disappointing years with LIV Golf, Cleeks GC player Bernd Wiesberger has opted to leave the circuit, and his old employer has reportedly stumped up the fine to allow him a smooth return to the DP World Tour.
Per The Telegraph’s Golf Correspondent James Corrigan, LIV Golf has paid a record £1.5m (approximately $1.9m fine) to clear the way for the 38-year-old to resume his career on a tour where he has claimed eight victories.
Unlike several other players, Wiesberger didn't resign from the DP World Tour after it won a legal battle against LIV Golfers in April, meaning he continued to accumulate fines for playing on the circuit.
However, after opting not to participate in either LIV Golf’s Free Agency stage of its transfer window or December’s LIV Golf Promotions event in Abu Dhabi, which will offer the top three players contracts, Wiesberger decided to return to the DP World Tour, who accepted his membership application following the payment of the fine.
It said in a statement that he had "expressed his desire to play a full DP World Tour schedule in 2024 and has fulfilled all sanctions - both financial and tournament suspensions - that were imposed upon him for breaches of the Tour’s conflicting event regulation across 2022 and 2023.”
It wasn’t made clear at the time that the payment of the fine had apparently come from LIV Golf, though. As for Wiesberger’s suspension, there was a hint in a statement of his own that he would be ineligible for an immediate return when he said he was looking forward to “getting started back in Dubai in January.”
According to the report, by then the suspension imposed on him will have been served. There are two DP World Tour events in January, the brand-new Dubai Invitational and the Dubai Desert Classic, with Wiesberger apparently earmarking the latter for his comeback on the tour.
If that is when he next competes on it, it will be his first DP World Tour event since the same tournament in 2023, where he finished tied for 20th.
Wiesberger will be hoping that begins an upturn in fortunes after a struggle over his two years with LIV Golf, which saw only one top-10 finish, eighth in the 2022 LIV Golf Jeddah event, in his 22 appearances.
Wiesberger, who also played for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup, last won on the DP World Tour at the 2021 Made In Himmerland, where he defended his title in Denmark.
The resumption of Wiesberger's DP World Tour career will also give the former World No.21 the chance to climb the world rankings. Wiesberger was ranked 94th when he first teed it up for LIV Golf in its inaugural tournament at London’s Centurion Club in June 2022.
However, while the circuit is cash-rich, it has never been able to offer world ranking points, and, as a result, he currently languishes at World No.510.
