DP World Tour community comes to grips with Swiss tragedy
It is as if the New Year’s Eve fire at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, is still smouldering, so much does it continue to affect the DP World Tour’s golfing community.
In mid-January, Guy Kinnings, the CEO of the DP World Tour, attended the season-opening Dubai Invitational at Dubai Creek Golf Club where a minute’s silence was held for Emanuele Galeppini, the 16-year-old Italian member of Dubai Creek who was the first confirmed victim among the 40 people who died amid the celebrations that went so wrong. Even now, Kinnings and his team are working on how they will pay due respect to the victims during this year’s Omega European Masters at Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club in early September.
“Everyone on our tour – from players to caddies to media – feels they are in this together,” Kinnings told GGP.
Tommy Fleetwood, a former winner of the Dubai Invitational, had been distraught when he received word of the New Year’s Eve disaster. Straight away, he sent out the message: “Our thoughts are with Galeppini, his family, and all the families affected by the Crans-Montana tragedy in Switzerland. Such a huge loss. Rest in peace Emanuele.”
The teenager, who had spoken with his family at midnight – an hour and a half before the flames erupted – had finished in the top 20 at one of Fleetwood’s 2025 International Pathway Series events. (The events are designed to bridge the link between junior golf and elite amateur competition).
… Miguel Ángel Jiménez, who counts the 2010 Omega European Masters among his 21 DP World Tour victories, told GGP that what had hit him at the time was “a feeling of disbelief and shock. After that, it was total heartbreak and sadness.”
Nicolas Féraud, the town’s mayor, had been quick to admit that safety inspections, which were supposed to be carried out annually, had not occurred at Le Constellation since 2019. At much the same time, Romain Jordan, a lawyer for several of the victims and their families, was calling for investigations: “It is rarely a single cause that causes a tragedy; there is always a chain of responsibility.”
Jordan called for investigations into town officials as well as Jacques and Jessica Moretti, the French owners of the bar. Swiss authorities opened a criminal investigation into the owners, and a court ordered pretrial detention for Jacques Moretti “for an initial period of three months due to the risk of flight.” The couple’s lawyers, for their part, said their clients “would not evade this legal process, which they will face together.”
In following the various updates on television, Miguel Ángel Jiménez, who counts the 2010 Omega European Masters among his 21 DP World Tour victories, told GGP that what had hit him at the time was “a feeling of disbelief and shock. After that, it was total heartbreak and sadness.”
Jiménez had been able to recognise the bar and its remains at once. He knew it well. Not because he had ever been inside, but because it was opposite the cigar shop which has always been one of his first ports of call when he arrives in Crans-Montana.
“There is this relaxed and easy feeling in the town, a town of lovely, friendly people who I see every year. … Everything is only a walk away – from the hotel to the golf course, and from the hotel to the restaurants in Crans, or past the lake and into Montana,” Jiménez said. “You feel like you are on top of the world.
“You don’t need a car that week. I walk to see my friends.”
Jean and Heidi Mudry, the owners of the old Hôtel Le Miedzor, got the first mention. Jiménez stayed in their hotel on the first occasion he went to Crans and had only been back for three or four years when Jean said to him, “In future, only tell me if you’re not coming.” He stayed at the Miedzor for 25 years in a row, at which point the owners sold up and moved into a flat on the top floor.
Asked if there was any memorabilia he had ever taken home from the town, apart from the money and his trophy, Jiménez said there was indeed. When he won in 2010, the DP World Tour’s then-oldest winner was given one of the cow bells which ring out in the 20 or so minutes leading up to the trophy presentation. He had lugged that bell back to his house in Spain.
Richard Boxall, the Sky Sports commentator and a winner of the 1990 Italian Open, is another still trying to get his head ’round the happy times and that one hideous night.
“The fire was horrendous,” he said. “To start with, I was struggling to work out where Le Constellation bar was and whether I’d been there at some point. I don’t think I had.”
Then, along with his fellow commentator Wayne Riley, he worked out that he had spent six months of his life in Crans, either playing in the championship or commentating.
“My next run of thoughts,” continued Boxall, “were about how what happened that night could so easily have happened to anyone.”
In his tournament-playing days, Boxall used to join the caddies in the Taxi bar, or maybe go for a drink in the George and Dragon pub. Come the evenings, he would enjoy one of his favourite Swiss meals – raclette or fondue and a salad.
“Sometimes, I’d sit on my own in the Parc Hotel and enjoy my own time; that’s how peaceful the place is. I never won the tournament – in fact, I don’t think I ever finished higher than eighth – but going to Crans has never been all about winning. There’s a Christmassy feel to it, and whenever I hear the cow bells in the hills, I think of ‘The Sound of Music.’
“In my early years there,” he continued, “we would hit balls into a net at Alex’s ski shop because there wasn’t a proper practice ground. At a regular tournament, you’d be out hitting balls on the range like everyone else. But because you couldn’t do that at Crans, nobody did. The practice ground of today is a bit out of the way. But there are buses to take you there and bring you back.
“They’d hand you out a metres book for working your way round the course, only instead of thinking metres, you thought yards because of the 10 percent difference because of altitude. That’s how high up the course is – 4,929 feet above sea level.
“The moment that means the most is when you arrive on the tee of the 331-yard seventh. It looks down to the Rhône Valley and stares across to the Bernese Alps. Some people go for the green, others don’t, but the truth is that you long for a delay. It allows you to stand on the tee and contemplate the clouds and life in general.”
Danny Willett and Miguel Ángel Jiménez during the 2025 Omega European Masters at Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club
Stuart Franklin, Getty Images
When Lee Westwood, then ranked No. 2 in the world, first cited his reasons for playing in Europe rather than in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoff event in Boston one year, he included that hole in the explanation he gave at a follow-up news conference. He also spoke of how he would “look out of my window in the morning and think to myself, ‘I’m in the right place.’ That’s all I need to know.”
“You’d rather be here than Boston?” pressed a media man.
“If I wanted to be in Boston, I’d be in Boston,” answered the smiling Westwood.
“I come here and I feel excited about it. Which is how you need to feel.”
There’s a cobbled street running through Crans – it is called the Lantern Path – where bronze stars are set among the cobbles to honour the golfing stars. Jiménez never tires of looking at his and at those belonging to winners such as the late Seve Ballesteros.
Some may have thought that Danny Willett, the 2015 Omega European Masters winner, was being a little irreverent when he came to his star ceremony pushing a pram. But it did not take long to see how much he had moved the locals by showing what his winner’s star meant to him – and to the 10 other family members who were in pursuit.
At the moment, there is a board at the foot of the walkway reading: “Crans-Montana is in mourning and stands with deep compassion alongside everyone affected by the tragedy of the night of 1 January. You are warmly invited here with calm, respect and consideration during this time of shared sorrow.”
When it comes to the 2026 tournament week, the stars on that Lantern Path can only reflect Kinnings’ words at the start of the year: “Everyone on our tour – from players to caddies to media – feel they are in this together.”
Top: A memorial site in front of Le Constellation bar during a national day of mourning in Crans-Montana
MAXIME SCHMID, AFP via GETTY IMAGES
