Just beating the November 17 deadline (the final day of last week’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai) the Spaniard paid any and all fines he incurred through his participation in competing LIV Golf events, officials at the DP World Tour confirmed with Golf Digest. Those facts make the former Masters champion eligible for the 2025 Ryder Cup matches at Bethpage Black. Garcia has won more matches, 25, than any other player in the biennial contest with the United States, and is Europe’s record points scorer with 28½.

“Yeah it’s all confirmed, I am a member of the DP World Tour again so very happy about it,” Garcia told GolfMagic. “I’m really excited to be back being part of the DP World Tour and excited to play a few events next year, support the Tour and obviously have the possibility of being eligible for the Ryder Cup. It’s now just time to play good golf and do some nice things.”

Despite Garcia’s newly regained status, initially reported by Bunkered on Monday, it is unlikely that the 44-year-old will be making a record-equaling 11th appearance in European colours next September at Bethpage. Until he serves the suspensions – believed to total around nine weeks – that went along with the payment of his reportedly seven-figure fines, Garcia will be unable to tee-up on the DP World Tour, where he last competed at the 2022 BMW PGA Championship.

In Garcia’s slight favour is that neither of the two LIV Golf tournaments that start the league’s 2025 schedule in February clash with DP World Tour events, so there would be no official problem with him playing in either. But anytime he does tee-up in a LIV event that clashes directly with one on the DP World Tour, he will collect further fines and suspensions. As things stand, the earliest Garcia would be able to make an unencumbered return to the DP World Tour would be at the Magical Kenya Open (February 20-23) or the South African Open the following week.

Such a late start to his DP World Tour campaign – where he will need to make a minimum of four appearances to retain membership – has obvious negative implications for Garcia’s ability to qualify automatically for the European Ryder Cup team. And there are others. As a past-champion at Augusta National, Garcia is currently exempt into the Masters. But that is the only major championship he has qualified for thus far in 2025. And, again as things stand, Garcia is unable to tee-up in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event. All of which only exacerbates his inability to accumulate qualifying points.

The bottom line? Making the team as one of the six automatic qualifiers is, for Garcia, somewhere between highly unlikely and virtually impossible. Still, the fact that he has made the effort to pay his fines and aims to serve his suspensions does speak to the level of his commitment to the Old World’s Ryder Cup cause. Should he have an exceptional season on LIV, European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald might just be tempted to use one of his six picks on his close friend and former Ryder Cup foursomes partner.

Such a scenario would hardly endear Donald to many on the DP World Tour, though. Since Garcia withdrew from that 2022 BMW PGA after shooting 76 in the opening round and without citing an official reason (then popped up at a college football game in Texas two days later), the Spaniard’s actions and public uttering have done little to repair his image and reputation with his former DP World Tour colleagues.

By way of example, in May 2023 when a sports arbitration panel ratified the sanctions imposed on him and other tour pros who joined LIV Golf without releases, the DP World Tour revealed Garcia was the only one of 17 players initially sanctioned not to have paid his £100,000 fine, “nor has he given any indication that he intends to.”

So it is that, for him at least, eligibility does not come with anything like universal popularity.