Tag: Sanctions

DP World Tour wins legal battle against LIV Golf, will be able to sanction players

This is a big victory for the DP World Tour.

An independent United Kingdom-based panel, Sports Resolutions, has ruled in favor of the DP World Tour to be able to fine and suspend LIV Golf players who played in conflicting events without permission, it was announced Thursday.

Members of the DP World Tour who played in Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf’s opening tournament last June in London asked for a conflicting event exemption, but the DP World Tour denied the request. Those players received three-event bans and fines.

Ian Poulter, Adrian Otaegui and Justin Harding appealed the decision, with the punishments being put on hold pending the appeal, which allowed LIV players to continue competing on the DP World Tour without penalty.

Eventually 16 golfers joined the appeal, but Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace and Otaegui withdrew before the hearing happened in February.

Sports Resolutions found DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley “acted entirely reasonably in refusing releases” and the relevant regulations are lawful and enforceable.

“The DP World Tour has a legitimate and justifiable interest in protecting the rights of its membership,” the panel ruled. “The sanctioned members committed serious breaches of the Code of Behaviour of the DP World Tour Regulations by playing in (LIV Golf events) despite their release requests having been refused. All of the players’ challenges therefore failed, their appeals are dismissed in their entirety, and the £100,000 fines originally imposed must now be paid within 30 days.”

Pelley said he was thankful for the decision. “We are delighted that the panel recognized we have a responsibility to our full membership to do this and also determined that the process we followed was fair and proportionate. In deciding the level of these sanctions last June, we were simply administering the regulations which were created by our members and which each of them signed up to.”

The decision is a big blow to golfers who compete for LIV. Playing in DP World Tour events was one of the few ways they’re able to received Official World Golf Ranking points, and it kept an avenue open for them to compete on the 2023 Ryder Cup team.

To be eligible for the European team, players must be members of the DP World Tour.

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All-Time Gators Men’s Basketball Bio: Vernon Maxwell (1984-88)

While he was most certainly a flawed human being who found trouble in almost every stop, “Mad Max” was unquestionably a baller on the court.

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Vernon Maxwell (1984-88) – Point/Shooting Guard

Vernon Maxwell was a very controversial person in Florida lore. While he left Gainesville as the Gators’ all-time leading scorer, his role in uncovering the program’s cash payoff scheme for athletes which resulted in harsh NCAA sanctions tarnished his legacy at UF.

Maxwell was a hometown boy, born in Gainesville and attending Buchholz High School where he was named Mr. Basketball of the state of Florida his senior year and was also an all-state defensive back in football. With an athletic scholarship in hand, he joined head coach Norm Sloan’s team in 1984.

The star guard excelled in his four years at UF, averaging 20 points a game his junior and senior season — just missing the mark his sophomore year with a 19.6 average — and still holds 15 Gators team records. During his senior season he upped his secondary game, averaging career highs in rebounds (4.2) and assists (4.3) per game while barely missing his best mark with just under two steals per game.

However, due to the aforementioned scandal in which Maxwell testified to a grand jury that he received money from Sloan, an assistant and University of Florida boosters which he used to buy cocaine, all of the points he amassed his junior and senior seasons were erased from the records. His 2,450 career points would still be the best in Gators men’s basketball history had they not been revoked.

Rescinded statistics notwithstanding, Maxwell finished his collegiate career the No. 2 scorer in Southeastern Conference history behind LSU’s Pete Maravich. However, despite his achievements on the court, he fell down into the second round of the 1988 NBA Draft, where he was selected 47th overall by the Denver Nuggets but quickly traded on draft day to the San Antonio Spurs for a second-round pick the following year.

Maxwell only played a season-and-a-half in San Antonio before he was sold to the Houston Rockets, where his game flourished alongside Hakeem Olajuwon and company. After a slow start to his NBA career his first two years, the young guard found his footing and from 1990 to 1992 he reached career highs in points per game with 17.0 and 17.2, respectively. Known for his deadly shooting from outside of the arc, he owned the NBA record for most 3-pointers made in a season from 1991 until 1993; he was also renown for his clutch shooting, sinking numerous game-winning shots throughout his career.

The former Gator earned an NBA championship ring with the Rockets for the first of their repeat titles in 1993-94; he missed out on the second ring when he quit the team after its opening first-round game loss to Utah in the 1995 playoffs in frustration due to recently acquired Clyde Drexler taking his starting spot and playing time. He would produce his third-highest career offensive output the following season with the Philadelphia 76ers before his career began to decline.

Overall, Maxwell played 13 total seasons in the NBA with eight different teams, accumulating almost 11,000 points for a career average of 12.8 per game and averaging double-digit scoring in 11 seasons while sinking 1,256 three-point shots at a 32 percent clip. “Hawk” also averaged 3.4 assists per game for his career, reaching his high-water mark of 5.1 per game in 1993-1994.

While Maxwell was most certainly a flawed human being who found trouble in almost every stop of his adult life, “Mad Max” was unquestionably a baller on the court. When considering how much he achieved when his sneakers were laced up — both with the Gators and in the pros — it is easy to place him among the greatest basketball players in UF’s program history.

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