Sergio Garcia Leaves LIV Golf and Returns to the DP World Tour for 2027

Sergio Garcia has made it official. The 46-year-old Spaniard announced on Thursday morning that he is leaving LIV Golf and will play on the DP World Tour in 2027, ending a four-year breakaway stint that began with one of the most bitter exits in modern golf and ends, fittingly, with an apology tour of his own making. “This tour has been a huge part of my career from the very beginning, and I’m proud to call it home again,” he wrote. “I’m also keeping my options open for a return to the PGA Tour.”

What did Garcia announce, exactly?

A return, not a retirement. Garcia said next season he will play on the DP World Tour, the circuit where he won 16 times before joining LIV in June 2022, and he framed the move as a homecoming and a reset at once. “Probably the most exciting part for me is strengthening my personal relationships, both new and old,” he wrote, and he added that he has been working hard on his game and his mental health in the offseason. The statement also looked ahead to the two stages that define his late career: Augusta next April, and the Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in September 2027.

The announcement was not a surprise, but it was not a formality either. Garcia had asked a federal bankruptcy judge last month to terminate his LIV contract, after the league filed for Chapter 11 protection in September, and he had already told Luke Donald he would do everything to make the 2027 Ryder Cup team. Thursday’s post turns that intention into a commitment, one day before the October 30 deadline for players to commit to the relaunched LIV 2.0.

Why does the timing matter?

Because the deadline is the story now. LIV Golf is trying to continue in 2027 and beyond under a LIV 2.0 business plan after the Saudi Public Investment Fund withdrew its support, and investor BC Partners extended its player commitment deadline to Friday, October 30. Golfweek reports roughly a dozen players have publicly announced they are leaving, and the DP World Tour has already told LIV players they must choose: no 2027 membership, no Ryder Cup. Garcia’s announcement, from a former Masters champion and a team captain, is the highest-profile exit yet in deadline week, and it arrives after Jon Rahm rejected LIV 2.0 in bankruptcy court and Adrian Meronk confirmed he would not extend his LIV deal.

Garcia’s own history makes the return stranger than most, and it is worth its own section, because the player announcing a homecoming is the same player who left in anger four years ago.

How did Garcia mend fences with the DP World Tour?

Through fines, a resignation and a climb back. His 2022 exit from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour was famously fiery: cameras caught him telling an official at the Wells Fargo Championship that he could not wait to leave the tour, and weeks later he was reportedly heard dismissing the DP World Tour in crude terms at an event in Germany. He resigned his DP World Tour membership in May 2023, after the tour’s sanctions on LIV players were upheld, then applied for reinstatement in November 2024 after reportedly paying more than $1 million in fines. He has made seven non-major DP World Tour starts since being reinstated, including the Spanish Open earlier this month, Golf Channel reports. “I’m proud to call it home again” is, from this player, a sentence with a past.

What is Garcia actually chasing?

Two things, both of which require him to be back on the traditional tours. The first is the Ryder Cup. Garcia is Europe’s all-time points leader with 28.5 points from ten appearances, a record built across 1999 to 2021, but he has not played in the event since Whistling Straits. He told Donald earlier this month he will do everything to make the 2027 team, and a full DP World Tour schedule is the only way to stay in the conversation, as a player or, as he put it, “an asset to the guys in whatever capacity that may be.”

The second is Augusta. Garcia won the Masters in 2017, his only major, and his 2026 visit ended in embarrassment: after a poor tee shot on the par-5 second hole, he damaged the tee box and snapped his driver head off against a cooler, receiving the first code-of-conduct warning in tournament history. His statement faces that directly. “I left Augusta last year disappointed with myself and my actions, and I’m ready to show what I’ve learned and where I am mentally,” he wrote. “Augusta has given me some of the greatest moments of my life, and I’d love nothing more than to chase another green jacket at such a special place.”

Can he get back to the PGA Tour too?

Not yet, and maybe not soon. Garcia said he is keeping his options open, but the path is narrow: Golfweek notes the PGA Tour’s Returning Member Program applied to only a select few golfers and was open for a brief window, and that eligibility restrictions could delay a PGA Tour return until August 2027. He also sits at No. 146 in the Official World Golf Ranking, Golf Channel reports, which limits his entry routes into the biggest events. The DP World Tour is the plan for 2027; the PGA Tour is a hope attached to it.

That is also why the broader LIV story matters more than any single player. The league’s financing lifeline and the player deadline it created have turned every exit into a data point, and Garcia’s is the one that best captures the reversal: a player who left in anger, paid seven figures in fines to get back, and now announces his return as a homecoming. “In golf, everything is earned and nothing is given,” he wrote to close his statement. “Let’s get to work.” For LIV 2.0, the question after Friday’s deadline is whether enough players still believe that sentence applies to the league he just left.