“Not sure where the Tour is now” – Lee Westwood raises concern for DP World Tour as Abu Dhabi Championship begins 

Lee Westwood has raised concerns over the future of the DP World Tour ahead of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, scheduled to take place from January 18 to 22.

Westwood believes that LIV Golf players should be allowed to compete on the DP Tour or the Tour's future will be jeopardized.

Lee Westwood, who has been playing in the competition for the past 30 years, said:

"I’m not sure where the Tour is now. If you’d have told me that I’d be playing in a $9m tournament on Tour, I’d struggle to believe you, but then if you told me there’d only be one member of the world’s top 20 in the field, I’d think you were mad."

Shane Lowry is the only golfer ranked in the top 20 who is playing on the Dubai Field. Lee Westwood went on to say:

"No disrespect to whoever he is but the 15th highest-ranked player on the Challenge Tour has got in this week. And this is a short field, as is next week, which is another $9m event. I’ve never known it go down so far, even when it was nowhere near this money."

Lee Westwood finds it unnecessary to restrict players like him from playing at DP World Tour pro-am events. He said:

“Why not let us play in the pro-am at Wentworth and here this week? Why would you not have, for instance, me and Poults playing at Wentworth."

The ongoing battle between the DP Tour and LIV Golf has raised many eyebrows as most of the top-rated players have joined the Saudi-backed series. Although a few LIV golfers are allowed to compete on the DP Tour, it's only until the hearing of the sporting arbitration is scheduled for February.

---

2023 Abu Dhabi Championship field including Lee Westwood

• George Coetzee
• Daan Huizing
• Maximilian Kieffer
• Richard Mansell
• Edoardo Molinari
• Andy Sullivan
• Victor Dubuisson
• Ross Fisher
• Ryan Fox
• Tyrrell Hatton
• Sepp Straka
• Lee Westwood
• Jamie Donaldson
• David Law
• Thriston Lawrence
• Adrian Meronk
• Francesco Molinari
• Patrick Reed
• Alexander Björk
• Rafa Cabrera Bello
• Padraig Harrington
• Marcus Kinhult
• Jordan Smith
• Bernd Wiesberger
• Adri Arnaus
• Nicolas Colsaerts
• Julien Guerrier
• Daniel Hillier
• Nicolai Højgaard
• Alexander Levy
• Thomas Bjørn
• Dan Bradbury
• Grant Forrest
• Jacques Kruyswijk
• Mikael Lindberg
• Thorbjørn Olesen Julien Brun
• Sean Crocker
• Calum Hill
• Victor Perez
• Matt Wallace
• Jeff Winther
• Jens Dantorp
• Ignacio Elvira Mijares
• Alexander Knappe
• Pablo Larrazabal
• Eddie Pepperell
• Ockie Strydom
• Richard Bland
• Gavin Kyle Green
• Joakim Lagergren
• Yanwei Liu
• Marc Warren
• Hennie du Plessis
• Jeremy Freiburghaus
• Justin Harding
• El Mehdi Fakori
• Lukas Nemecz
• Dale Whitnell
• Darius van Driel
• Aaron Cockerill
• Oliver Hundebøll
• Scott Jamieson
• Matthew Jordan
• Espen Kofstad
• Freddy Schott
• Wil Besseling
• Jorge Campillo
• John Catlin
• Masahiro Kawamura
• Zander Lombard
• Guido Migliozzi
• Tommy Fleetwood
• Shane Lowry
• Thomas Pieters
• Tapio Pulkkanen
• Shubhankar Sharma T
• Matthew Southgate
• Mikko Korhonen
• Robert MacIntyre
• Alex Noren
• Matthieu Pavon
• Ian Poulter
• Seamus Power
• Luke Donald
• Søren Kjeldsen
• Yannik Paul
• Antoine Rozner
• Henrik Stenson
• Paul Waring
• Marcus Armitage
• Ewen Ferguson
• Min Woo Lee
• Adrian Otaegui
• Callum Shinkwin
• Connor Syme
• Sam Horsfield
• Richie Ramsay
• Jason Scrivener
• Sami Valimaki
• Jeung-Hun Wang
• Ashun Wu
• Haotong Li
• James Morrison
• Kalle Samooja
• Santiago Tarrio
• Oliver Wilson
• Fabrizio Zanotti
• Oliver Bekker
• Nathan Kimsey
• Joost Luiten
• JC Ritchie
• Sebastian Soderberg
• Johannes Veerman
• Chase Hanna
• Angel Hidalgo
• Jazz Janewattananond
• Hurly Long
• Marcel Schneider
• Nicolai Von Dellingshausen
• Issa Abou El Ela
• Louis De Jager
• Daniel Gavins
• Marcus Helligkilde
• Tom McKibbin
• Niklas Nørgaard