McEwan: Yo, PGA Tour? Don’t forget about your pals in Europe

Just as not all men are created equal, neither, it seems, are strategic alliances.

How else should we be expected to interpret news of the PGA Tour brokering a deal with a US-centric consortium of investors and sports franchise owners, an agreement that will net the circuit a cool $3bn investment.

This support amounts to a number of things: the creation of a new, for-profit organisation called PGA Tour Enterprises; job security (apparently) for embattled commissioner Jay Monahan; equity for players; and, of course, a significant blow being struck in the battle to out-manoeuvre the Saudi-funded LIV Golf.

That noise you hear? That’s the sound of backs being slapped and lite beer being chugged in Ponte Vedra Beach. And why the hell not?

The fight for supremacy and top billing might not be over – far from it – but, for the first time in a long time, the PGA Tour has some momentum.

These are high times in Florida. Yee-ha! Attaboy! Youdaman, Jay!

But how’s the mood at Wentworth? What about the DP World Tour, the PGA Tour’s ‘strategic’ partner?

It took eight paragraphs and almost 700 words before it got a shout-out in the press release, barely any effort being made to present the circuit as much more than an afterthought.

“Additionally,” read the missive, “the PGA Tour’s Strategic Alliance with the DP World Tour remains a focus.”

That kinda makes it sound like the opposite is true, guys, but go on.

“As close partners, the DP World Tour was included in the original framework discussions and agreement announced last year, and the tour is in active discussions on how to best work together for the continued benefit of all.”

Riiiiiiight.

If you’re not particularly reassured by any of that, you’re not alone. Several of the DP World Tour’s rank-and-file feel the same.

“Where do we stand in all of this?!” asked Richard Mansell.

His fellow card-holder Pablo Larrazabal made a cryptic reference to a “boys club deal again”, adding: “Where is the DP World Tour in the deal? Is it beneficial to us? What is going to do to us? Well, we will see, I hope.”

Fortunately, their soon-to-be-former-chief-executive Keith Pelley quickly showed up to allay those concerns with a ‘whoa, whoa, whoa’ and lashings of ‘chill out’. Or presumably that was his intention.

“Negotiations involving ourselves, the PGA Tour and the PIF are still on-going,” he wrote in a letter to members. “I believe this announcement gives continued momentum to those discussions as well as being an important step to possible overall alignments between all four entities, SSG included.

“Such global focus… is crucial to the forward momentum of the game and it is important that this latest entrant into our sport has this as part of their thinking.”

What – and I cannot stress this enough – the hell does any of that mean? It calls to mind an episode of The Office where, having not delivered on a promise to make changes to his branch, David Brent finds himself accused by Jennifer Taylor-Clarke of management speak. Except unlike Pelley, Brent wanted to keep his job.

The players and fans of the DP World Tour don’t want mealy-mouthed platitudes from somebody for whom this entire omni-shambles will soon be a distant memory. They want specifics. They want tangibles. They want clarity. They’ve had enough of words. Now, they want action. Is that too much to ask?

Perhaps that will indeed come in short order. Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect all the answers whilst the ink is still drying on the $3bn contract. There is, though, little doubt the European Tour deserves better than it’s currently getting, particularly from the PGA Tour. It gave Monahan and Co. its support when they needed it most. It stood shoulder to shoulder with them at one of the most critical and caustic times in the sport’s history. Now, it’s payback. Not “we’ll see you in eight paragraphs” payback. Actual payback.

The DP World Tour is a phenomenal product, with an abundance of exceptional people working on it, outside as well as inside the ropes.

It also has history. Indeed, PGA Tour loyalists have routinely flexed about their circuit offering heritage that LIV’s millions cannot buy, never pausing to consider that it is on the DP World Tour, in fact, where many of the sport’s oldest chapters are to be found. It has several national opens – Australia, France and South Africa amongst them – that pre-date the PGA Tour. Many of the sport’s most enduring icons – Seve, Langer, Faldo and, yes, Norman – are products of Europe, not America. But who needs that when you’re the HOME OF THE FREAKIN’ BRAVE, MAN!

In Paul McGinley, Guy Kinnings and David Howell, the DP World Tour also has three of the brightest minds in the game. And all of this talent, culture and background has a proven business model as its foundation.

In the ongoing fisticuffs for global supremacy, the PGA Tour would do well to remember that, value that and reward that.

If it doesn’t, well, there’s a certain Public Investment Fund that might. And if that happens, we’re back to square one. An incredibly fractured sport will have put up with several years of schism and rancour, and for what?

Little more than the likelihood of many more to come.

But hey, at least Jay will still have a nice corner office.

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Michael McEwan is the 2023 PPA Scotland ‘Columnist of the Year’ and ‘Writer of the Year’

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor