[Photo: Andrew Redington]
Henrik Stenson, whose Ryder Cup captaincy was stripped due to his defection to LIV Golf, is returning to play on the DP World Tour next season. Ben Parsons of Bunkered was the first to report Stenson’s move.
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Stenson, 49, finished 49th in the limited-field league’s season-long standings in 2025. However, unlike past years – where exceptions were made to captains or bigger names that fell into LIV’s “Drop Zone”, most notably Bubba Watson last campaign, for business reasons – the Saudi golf outfit is now enforcing relegation as it hopes to obtain accreditation from the Official World Golf Ranking. As such, save for regaining status through LIV’s qualifying school, Stenson would have had to play on the Asian Tour in 2026.
Conversely, the DP World Tour has been amenable to its former members returning from LIV. For Stenson, this meant paying outstanding fines totally more than £1 million to regain playing eligibility on the European circuit, giving him the chance to play beginning next season. Like several among the over-40 crowd that joined LIV in 2022, Stenson had not been competitively relevant for some time; his last win on the PGA Tour came in 2017 and he finished 187th or worse in the FedEx Cup standings in his final full three years on tour. However, Stenson’s departure was controversial as he had been named European Ryder Cup captain earlier in 2022. At his introductory press conference in March (weeks after LIV was ostensibly done in the fallout of Phil Mickelson’s controversial quotes) Stenson said the appointment meant he would not be joining any breakaway tours.
“Yeah, there’s been a lot of speculation back and forth, and as I said, I am fully committed to the captaincy and to Ryder Cup Europe and the job at hand,” Stenson said. “So we’re going to keep busy with that and I’m going to do everything in my power to deliver a winning team in Rome.”
When asked again later in the press conference if the captaincy meant he had to give his word that he would not join LIV Golf, Stenson replied in the affirmative: “The captain does sign a contract. He’s the only one that does that. Players and vice-captains don’t. But the captain has an agreement and those agreements are between Ryder Cup Europe and the captain, so I’m fully committed to my role as a captain and working hard towards the result we want in Rome.”
After the Open Championship at St Andrews in July 2022, Stenson signed with LIV Golf, winning his first event at Trump Bedminster a short time later. He was stripped of his captaincy following his move. Luke Donald was named his replacement, guiding the Europeans to back-to-back Ryder Cup victories.
As a co-captain of the Majesticks, it is unclear if Stenson will be able to keep his part ownership of the club if returning to the DP World Tour full-time.
Stenson’s jump comes as two other LIV members, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, continue to wait on their appeal of suspensions and fines for joining LIV Golf for the 2024 season. There was belief in the golf world that the appeal was waiting until the completion of the Ryder Cup – in which Rahm and Hatton competed for the Europeans – to be heard, yet no date has been set for their case.
