Sawt Falasteen - LIV's Pieters on arbitration ruling: 'We had it coming'

The 31-year-old Belgian fired a two-over par 74 in Thursday's first round of the 87th Masters, then spoke about Monday's earlier arbitration panel defeat for Saudi-backed LIV Golf in London.

The Europe-based DP World Tour won its legal battle against LIV Golf and will be allowed to punish players who took part last June's debut LIV event, opening the door for greater punishments to LIV players in the future.

LIV Golf players were banned by the US PGA Tour last year after several top stars jumped for the record $25 million purses from 54-hole events despite concerns about Saudi human rights issues.

For the moment, the legal body blow to LIV players leaves Pieters, who made his LIV debut at Mexico in February, uncertain of his future.

"It's their decision and I respect it," Pieters said. "We had it coming. It's just part of the deal, I guess."

For Pieters, it could mean not being allowed to play in next month's event at Antwerp -- an event he helped revive in 2018.

"I would love to play my home Open," Pieters said. "I don't see how it's good for the game if I have to skip the tournament. They're just hurting themselves really.

"But you've got other players coming through, I guess."

The May 11-14 Antwerp tournament conflicts with LIV Golf's Tulsa event being held the same week.

Losing the DP World Tour would also cut off another avenue for LIV players to earn world ranking points, which are not awarded for LIV events. Those are crucial to qualifying for major tournaments such as this week's Augusta National showdown.

Four-time major winner Rory McIlroy said Tuesday that it would change the "dynamic of everything a bit" if the ruling went the World Tour's way.

The decision was announced before dawn in Augusta but two LIV Golf stalwarts, past green jacket winners Sergio Garcia and Patrick Reed, said they hadn't heard about it.

- 'Blinders on' -

Spain's Garcia, the 2017 Masters champion who opened on two-over 74, said he hadn't heard.

"I don't look at the news, so I don't know what happened," Garcia said. "I'm not going to talk about something without all the information that I need."

As for his interest in playing DP World Tour events, Garcia said, "We'll see how the year goes."

Garcia said the best way to deal with it for now was to ignore it.

"We'll see," he said. "I probably won't catch up on it."

American Reed, the 2018 Masters winner, wasn't in the know either after shooting 71.

"I was going to look at that and deal with all that after this week," Reed said. "When tournament starts, I have blinders on."

Reigning British Open champion Cameron Smith, the world number six from Australia, said before the tournament that it's important for LIV Golf that he and other LIV players perform well against PGA stars at the Masters.

"It's just important for LIV guys to be up there because I think we need to be up there," Smith said. "There's a lot of chatter about these guys don't play real golf, these guys don't play real golf courses...

"We've still got a lot of guys up there that can play some really serious golf, and we compete against each other hard week-in and week-out.

"I just think we need a good, strong finish."

K.AbuTaha--SF-PST