The professional golf tour now known as the DP World Tour began in 1901 as the Professional Golfers’ Association. It was renamed the PGA European Tour beginning in 1972 after John Jacobs, the inestimable golf teacher, was appointed director general. Three years later, Ken Schofield took over as chief executive before retiring in 2004 and handing over to George O’Grady. In 2015, Keith Pelley, a Canadian businessman with expertise in sports, became chief executive before returning to Toronto in March of this year before Guy Kinnings, who had been Pelley’s deputy since 2018, became the tour’s fifth boss.
In the 2024 season, the DPWT features 45 tournaments in 26 countries on five continents for a total prize fund of $148.5 million, excluding the major championships. It is considered to be professional golf’s second most important tour.
But could it be more important?
Just after the Masters in April, in one of his first acts as chief executive of the DPWT, Kinnings held a lunch for journalists at a Thames-side restaurant in London. As commercial barges and other river traffic slipped by outside the window, inside the room it soon became clear that while there were many questions put to Kinnings, he had little to say about the state of the negotiations between the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports Group on the one hand and LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is financing LIV Golf, on the other. It made one wonder how involved the DPWT, which has a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour, was in the negotiations?
So, for those who are interested in the answer to that question, it was good to hear that Kinnings and Eric Nicoli, chairman of DPWT, flew to the U.S. the week after the U.S. Open to meet Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and other tour executives. Furthermore, Monahan was in the U.K. for DPWT board meetings on June 24 and met some of the DPWT staff members.
In 2016, Tim Finchem, then commissioner of the PGA Tour, puzzled some DPWT officials when he questioned the need for a European Tour at all. “We think that what’s in the paramount best interest of men’s and women’s professional golf is coming under one unified organisation with a genuine global brand and being able to compete on a global level in the global markets, much like soccer.
“There aren’t that many sports that are as active on virtually every continent as golf. That’s the reason why the IOC [International Olympic Committee] wanted it is as part of the Olympics, so we should be taking advantage of that. Now, there are all kind of structural issues and turf issues and attitude issues, and the change is sometimes difficult. But sooner or later I think everybody is going to get on that road, and when they do, I think it’s going to be a very positive thing for golf.”
Pelley responded almost immediately. “I have been in this job seven months. I am still listening and learning, and what I have learned is that diversity is very much our strength. We are golf’s global tour. In [this current season] we play in 26 countries on five continents of the world including the U.S. We have quite a bit of diversity right now, and what we are currently trying to do is build our organisation and build our tour for our members.
“Obviously, Mr Finchem has been in the industry a lot longer than I have, so he is probably better equipped to talk about it, but the decision we make will always be with our members at the forefront.… For us, we are in the process of making our tour a viable alternative to the tour in the U.S.”
With its footfall around the world, the DPWT could act as a bridge between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf in the way that the R&A brokered the deal that ended the lawsuit by Ping against the R&A and the USGA, the game’s two rule makers, 34 years ago.
It is not as if DPWT players have made little or no impression on golf in the U.S. Currently, Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy (2), Sweden’s Ludvig Åberg (4), Norway’s Viktor Hovland (6) and Spain’s Jon Rahm (10) are among the world’s top-ranked players. Remember those golden years in the 1980s and 1990s when Europeans won 11 of the 20 Masters? Spain’s Seve Ballesteros set the ball rolling in 1980, his first of two green jackets in four years. In 1985, Germany’s Bernhard Langer claimed his first of two Masters titles. Scotland’s Sandy Lyle won in 1988, England’s Nick Faldo in the next two years (and again in 1996), and Wales’ Ian Woosnam in 1991. Spain’s José María Olazábal also won twice at Augusta National. There have been victories in eight of the 24 Masters held in this millennium by players either wholly or partially aligned to the DPWT. Europeans have won two of the past four U.S. Opens: Spain’s Jon Rahm in 2021 and England’s Matt Fitzpatrick in 2022. Europe has not lost a home Ryder Cup since 1993.
Don’t these figures mean anything? They mean that the DPWT is in a strong place.
The DPWT has a long history and presence in the Middle East, staging its first event in that part of the world in 1989 when the Dubai Desert Classic debuted at the Emirates Golf Club. One who attended that tournament remembers how it was possible then to travel half an hour from the airport to the golf club seeing only sand. Now if you were to make the same journey not a grain of sand is visible, having been replaced by multi-lane highways and multi-storey office buildings and flats.
The Saudi International was started in 2019 and three years later became the flagship of the Asian Tour, this time with the Saudis’ Public Investment Fund as the title sponsor.
Another reason why the DPWT could be a major influence in any arrangements going forward is that commercial links between the United Kingdom and Middle Eastern countries go back decades, so the newfound interest in sport by Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, among others, is merely an expansion of these links. The value of trade between the U.K. and Saudi Arabia in 2023 was £17.3 billion ($21.87 billion), up 5.3 percent from the previous year, and between the UK and the United Arab Emirates to the end of 2023 it was £24.2 billion ($30.59 billion).
Saudi Arabia’s newly formed professional football league, the Saudi Pro League, has lured several high-profile British footballers as part of a raid on Europe’s top clubs. This is part of Vision 2030, the plan thought up by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to change Saudi Arabia from a country known for its production of oil into one also known for its sport.
Cricket and motor racing as well as golf, football and boxing have been targeted, and rugby is currently being scrutinised by Middle East interests as a sport worth investment. Next January, rugby teams from England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales, the countries that compete in the game’s annual Six Nations Championship, are to be invited to play games in Saudi Arabia. Last month Qatar Airlines sponsored a rugby international played at Twickenham, headquarters of England’s Rugby Football Union, between Wales and South Africa.
In light of all this, the DPWT ought to be an important participant in talks about the future of professional golf in the U.S. and Europe.
Is it, however? In five years, will the DPWT be the player it deserves to be in golf given its standing, history and, as stated, the commercial links between the country in which its headquarters are based and that part of the world? Or will it be little more than the handmaiden of the mighty PGA Tour?
E-MAIL JOHN
Top: Guy Kinnings (kneeling middle), the DP World Tour's new chief, with Europe's winning '23 Ryder Cup team
Ross Kinnaird, Getty Images