Golf correspondentPublished8 minutes agoSir Nick Faldo says LIV golfers seeking a return to the DP World Tour may have to "eat a bit of humble pie" before regaining eligibility for the European-based circuit.
LIV's 2026 season ended last Sunday in Indianapolis after this week's cancellation of the breakaway tour's Team Championship in Michigan.
Tyrrell Hatton, Tom McKibbin and Adrian Meronk are competing instead at the Husqvarna British Masters starting on Thursday.
Six-time major champion Faldo is promoting the Belfry tournament while LIV's boss Scott O'Neil continues his quest to replace Saudi Arabian funding. He wants $350m (£258m) investment to keep the league operating next year.
"I'm hearing there are more players wanting to leave LIV than want to stay," Faldo told BBC Sport.
"So it doesn't sound good for them for the future."
Hatton, McKibbin and Meronk are able to compete as DP World Tour members after accepting a deal that allowed them to play both tours without sanction this year.
For his walk on music at the Indianapolis tournament last week, Hatton chose Queen's I Want to Break Free, interpreted as a firm signal that the Englishman wants to leave the tour that began in 2022.
Hatton has recent tournament wins that protect his DP World status. Two-time major champion Jon Rahm also has exemptions that would qualify him for the tour should he quit the previously Saudi Arabia-funded outfit.
But Faldo is clear that it should not be overly easy for LIV players to walk straight back onto the DP World Tour.
"How do they actually give them a route back?" Faldo added.
"You know, given the way they've disrupted - go and start again. Go back to tour school.
"Hey, you might have to eat a bit of humble pie and say, well, I want to be a proper golfer again, and so I've got to start back where I'm meant to be and I'll work my way up the good old way with my skills and my scoring."
'Tough road back' to PGA Tour from LIV - McIlroy
While America's PGA Tour imposed blanket one-year bans on members who competed on the LIV tour, their European counterparts take a more nuanced approach.
With many leading Europeans based in the United States, the Wentworth-based organisation would like as many big names as it can get.
At the same time they have to protect the rest of the membership who remained loyal to the tour.
"It is a difficult jigsaw to piece together and we have to work out how to treat these players should they want to leave LIV and rejoin," said a senior tour source.
Faldo said: "We can negotiate. If a player has some form of exemption on the tour already, someone like Rahm would obviously carry it through majors and that sort of thing.
"But all the other guys, you know, they did cause quite a disruption in the world of golf. You know, they were in a way invited into LIV. And that's not how golf is, is it?
"We all had to do the good old Monday qualifying back in the day, 50 blooming years ago. I personally think that's the way it should be, you start again and climb the ladder."
Chile's Joaquin Niemann was one of the most successful players on the LIV tour, amassing more than £60m in prize money. But the 27-year-old is currently ineligible for both the PGA and DP World Tours.
Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia - all distinguished Ryder Cup players for Europe - are others whose status could be up for debate.
Exciting young Spaniard Josele Ballester and American Peter Uihlein are LIV golfers who have entered the first stage of DP World Tour qualifying school at Huddersfield on 2 September.
