Saudi golf rebels banned from Scottish Open as plight of Europe’s Ryder Cup team remains unresolved

The Saudi rebels will be banned from next month’s Scottish Open, but the Ryder Cup reprieve for the European players contracted to the LIV Golf Series looks like stretching on deep into the summer and perhaps beyond.

The eagerly-awaited announcement from the DP World Tour – formerly the European Tour – is expected on Friday and will see the likes of Ian Poulter and Sergio García banished from the $8 million event taking place on July 7-10, the week before the 150th Open Championship at St Andrews.

For the first time, the links tournament at the Renaissance Club will be co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and PGA Tour, after the game’s two traditional powerhouses signed a “strategic alliance” 20 months ago in the response to the LIV threat.

Yet despite the PGA Tour having issued indefinite bans to its members who have signed deals with the breakaway circuit, the DP World Tour will continue to ponder how best to react to those who defied the orders of Keith Pelley after the Tour’s chief executive denied waivers to players who asked to appear in LIV events.

Fines will likely be issued, yet it is thought that the policy going forwards after the Scottish Open will be to take it on a tournament-by-tournament basis. As this is not a Ryder Cup year, Pelley and his board still have time to reach a decision on the biennial dust-up, with concerns growing that the 95-year-old match is under threat because of the LIV bombshell.

The PGA Tour bans essentially mean that US heavyweights such as Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka – who Telegraph Sport exclusively revealed on Tuesday has signed a nine-figure deal with LIV – are ineligible to play for their country in both the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup.

And with Phil Mickelson also on the ever-growing roster nurtured by Greg Norman, the LIV chief executive, it…