The Uncertain Future of the European Tour

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Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a bride egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg Egg, Fride Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: To run off of the hump.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're discussing the future of the European Tour, or what is now known as the DP World Tour. The reason we're talking about this now is that the biggest event in golf this past week was the BMWPGA Championship on the DP World Tour, and the field had a mixture of players that we haven't seen outside of the majors in a while. There were euro Tour regulars, of course, but also some PGA Tour members as well as a number of players who have signed on with the Live Golf series. So naturally there was a lot of tension, which was fun to watch, but in a more serious sense, there was this overarching discussion of how the DP World Tour should kind of position itself in the new golf landscape. So for example, should it accommodate live players to some degree, What kind of relationship should it have with the PGA Tour. Is it okay for the DP World Tour to just sort of accept its status as a feeder tour. I think these are some really important questions and at some point the euro Tour and as CEO Keith Pelly will need to answer them, and those answers have big consequences for what professional golf looks like going forward. So that's what we're digging into today here with me to talk about it all is Andy Johnson. Andy, how are you doing?

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Speaker 2: Gerrett?

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Speaker 3: I think this this week with the European Tours just like a very interesting inflection point for the tour. It's obviously, I think when we were growing up watching golf, the European Tour was a fixture, and it was a strong tour. It had many of the world's best players on it, and I think you can kind of trace back to when Tiger burst on the scene, is when the European Tour began to, you know, reach a demise. It obviously had a lot of strong years early in Tiger's career, but as the money really shifted to the PGA Tour, it has you know, consistently declined in terms of world class players that play predominantly on that tour. And we're talking about a tour that at one time was arguably better than the PGA Tour, especially in the eighties when they had you know, the likes of Seve and Sandy Lyle and Wusdom and longer playing on this tour. Faldo also in there. So it is a is a quite a different scene there. They play for much smaller sums of money, far fewer world ranking points at this point. But then they have a couple events such as the Genesis Scottish Open, this week's BMWPGA and some other Rolex events that are you know, big ticket events and draw relatively good fields.

00:03:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so overall, what do you think the euro Tour's situation is right now? Like what is it? Do you think it's in good shape right now or do you think there's a really kind of concerning thing happening with the status of that tour.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: I don't think it's it's a concerning trend. I think that it's pretty clear that at this point it is it has been demoted into a feeder tour. Outside of a handful of events. The reason players play the European Tour and you see it at corn Ferry Finals, is it just wrapped up. You know, you saw Dean Burmester for example, and Tom Deetree, two of the you know better regular European Tour players for example, they were they are you know, guys that in fields you know you were names in the smaller fields. Those two guys are now on the PGA Tour and they will be playing on the PGA Tour because they offer persises that are you know, in some weeks seven times greater than the European Tour persus and it's just not it's not a close. So what you know, you play well on the European Tour, and the the carrot at the end of playing well on the European Tour now is PGA Tour membership. If you play well enough, it's it's Corn Ferry Finals. You know, go over and play in the Corn Ferry Finals and hope you get PGA Tour membership. So in a way, you know, when you think of the objective of of corn the Corn Ferry Tour, which is obviously the PGA Tour, Speeder Tour, is the same thing.

00:04:56
Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: The European Tour is slightly different because they have a great history, and I mean, I love European Tour golf. Like there's nothing better than turning on the TV in the morning in America and having a good European Tour event on the weekend running, you know, it feels.

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Speaker 2: Like a great void.

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Speaker 3: It's that morning golf that like, you know, you talk about Saturday morning cartoons with kids for for golf loving people. It's Saturday Sunday morning European Tour and it's got this It's got potential to be a very you know, and it was once a great tour. It has become a feeder tour outside of these few weeks.

00:05:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's clearly where the tour is right now. And the question is whether that is the best possible outcome for the DP World Tour at this point. And we can talk about that later on. But I want to go back to history a little bit. You mentioned that prior to Tiger, the European Tour was in many ways a legitimate competitor for the PGA Tour. That's not to say that they were equal. Per sizes have been bigger on the PGA Tour for a long time pre Tiger, but the disparity between the tours certainly seemed to increase after nineteen ninety seven, and especially after the turn of the century in the two thousands, it just got to be a bigger and bigger gap, to the point where great European players the choice was pretty clear for them that eventually they would want to play on the PGA Tour. Now, that didn't happen in every case, but it happened in most cases. So, all right, the European Tour that you and I remember from way back when, My main memory of the European Tour was just that it would kind of pop into my awareness when the Ryder Cup would come up and there were all these incredibly appealing players who would come out of the European Tour, and so there was like a little bit of mystery there, like what's going on on this other tour that it can produce these really wonderful players. Now, at some point that I'll change. Do you think Tiger was the main thing that changed about that? And the money that that Tiger Woods brought to the PGA Tour, do you think that was the turning point? There.

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Speaker 3: I think so because once the money disparity became so great that it was impossible to ignore. I think that was part of it. And you saw players. I think the big thing is you saw players like Faldo and Sevy and a lot of great European players would play part of you know, their schedule in America, but they retained the idea of playing both. Or you know, Ernie L's was somebody that played all over the world and continued to do it.

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Speaker 2: He felt like it was his duty.

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Speaker 3: But then there became so much money on the American tour that it was silly to not focus on that and to maximize the earnings is what I really believe. I think, like you know, you look at the failure of the WGCs, I think that is a big part of it. You know, if wgc's had become a world a truly World Golf championship that went around the world and were Americanized and just strictly American World Golf Championships, then all of a sudden you would have seen more European tour events around those events, more popular, more worldwide events.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, the WGCs are such an important part of this, I think, and not just the failure of them to stay international, but the success of them as tournaments that made money for players. Because what did European Tour players all of a sudden start doing when the WGCs came around, Well, they would play the WGCs. That would become a big part of their schedules, and the WGCs almost served as an entry point into the PGA Tour for a lot of European players. They would play these events, they would get huge amounts of money for playing in the events, they would get some kind of like momentum, some kind of status on the PGA Tour, and suddenly it was much more of a possibility for them to switch easily to the PGA Tour. And so in retrospect, the WGCs almost seemed like a carrot that the PGA Tour was dangling to European players, saying, come on over here. You know, the water's nice and there's a lot of money. You can play these tournaments. You can get into these tournaments through the European Tour, and if you do well in them, then suddenly playing on the PGA Tour becomes much more of a possibility. And oh guess what a few years into it, most of the wgc's are going to be in America anyway, so you're gonna have to be over here quite a bit. Anyway, I think that the wgca's ended up being a major attracting force for those players.

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Speaker 3: So think about the Durrell WGC and what that served, right, It was in March, it was it was before the Masters, it was you know, in what happened was like you know, it led to a lot of English players taking up residents in South Florida because they knew that they came over to America in March and they would play the entire Florida Swing they'd live there, they'd stay over through the Masters, and you know, that was and then they had the players in May. You know, a different points of time the players was in March, you know, but you could build this schedule where you knew, I'm going to be in the States for a two month period and it started to just normalize the idea of coming over. And like you look at somebody like Lee Westwood and he's a perfect example. He now he is a player that stayed loyal to the European Tour forever until obviously the latest chapter with the with the you know, really the most recent years he became a PGA Tour player and now he's a live player, but he was you know, he's the shining example of a top flight player who stayed European. But even he he had a house in South Florida. He would come over every spring and play, you know, in America for those months.

00:11:03
Speaker 1: And he's played bay Hill forever.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because it was by you know, Derel WGC bay Hill, the Masters, like it just makes sense to do that, right as a player. But really that that spurred by you know, all these tournaments that are there, and one of the big ones.

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Speaker 2: Was the WGC.

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Speaker 3: The idea was to unite the world's best players and play all around the world. When the WGCs were created, World Golf Championships and what it what it became really was a way to unite players in America to play, you know, unite the top players in America to play. And it definitely fueled the dominance of.

00:11:45
Speaker 2: The PGA Tour. That would you know that we see now.

00:11:49
Speaker 1: It was supposed to help all the tours. It was supposed to help the Asian Tour, the Sunshine Tour, it was supposed to help the Australasian Tour probably I mean this The WGCs are put on by the Internet Federation of PGA Tours, right, it was supposed to be to the benefit of the tours around the world, but the tour that most benefited from it was of course the PGA Tour, because they ended up being this mechanism for finding players in these other tours around the world and bringing them into the PGA Tour fold. I don't think that we could have predicted that that would happen. I don't think the European Tour could have or should have predicted that would happen. But looking back on it now, it's pretty clear that that is exactly what happened. Now, getting down to like the individual player level, I think another influence here, Okay, we've got Tiger, We've got the WGCs. Another factor is just how European tour stars, or how European born golf stars began to build their careers. They started to do it in a very different way than Sevy did it or then Nick Faldo did it. Often European stars in the early two thousands would start on the European Tour play there for a few years, and then once it became possible for them to play on the PGA Tour, they would move to Florida and then play full time on the PGA Tour and continue to play a few events on the European Tour that weren't co sanctioned in order to maintain their status for the Ryder Cup and maybe in order to support their home tour out of a sense of duty or whatever, but really it allowed them to stay relevant for the Ryder Cup. And they would play these schedules where it was fifteen to twenty events on the PGA Tour, they'd play the WGCs, they'd play the majors, all of which counted for the European Tour, and then they would play a few events on the euro Tour, mostly in the fall, to complete their schedules and to earn some Ryder Cup points and maintain their memberships on the European Tour. That became the standard way to do things. One of the first players to do that was Ian Poulter right now a live player, now a big voice in this discussion about where the DP World Tour should go next. Ian Poulter played a few years toward the beginning of his career on the European Tour. He was there for a while. I mean it wasn't just a short stopover, but he eventually switched to the PGA Tour and became more of a full time player there. Luke Donald was another way of going about it. And you know about how Luke Donald did it, right, I mean he went to college in the States.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's something that can't be ignored, is the rise of college golf and the popularity of college golf with international players, and you know, just the I think a lot of it has to do with the rise of amateur golf, the you know, ability to travel abroad in video you know, the idea of the video camera becoming accessible and all of a sudden college coaches being able to see swings and get results of players playing, you know, across the world. You know, all these things led to war international players coming to America. You know, Faldo obviously played for I think it was a semester or a year. Some players in the when they had their boon in the eighties, guys came over. They it didn't necessarily go well, but that was really the start of guys coming over to America and playing internationally. Now it is a common practice where you know, like for example, the highest rated international amateur Ludvig Aberg, I think he plays at Texas Tech.

00:15:32
Speaker 2: You know, the Swedish player.

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Speaker 3: So you know, obviously Victor Hoveland with with Oklahoma State is another example. You know, you could go down the list. John rom Yeah, John Rahm at Arizona State. Like so these players come and get acclimated in America now and they spend four years early in their career as opposed to what it used to be was like it was more of the Matt Fitzpatrick version where yes, you turn pro at nineteen and you go figure it out on the European tour. And I think, like, you know, with that said what you said about Ian Poulter, I would take a step back and say, I think the biggest factor and the biggest example of how careers were different from just say Lee Westwood or Sergio Garcia is Rory McElroy.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, Yeah, that was that's the next one. Yeah, So tell me about Roy McElroy.

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Speaker 3: Well, Rory obviously he was you know, he signed to play college golf, but he did you know, Lye in America and he got his early early starts on the European Tour. He was a European Tour star first, but as soon as he was became a worldwide star, this he adopted that schedule that you're talking about, where it is a PGA tour schedule, but playing enough to satisfy his European status. And and he's he's become such a big star that if he didn't satisfy his European status to our status rules, the rules.

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Speaker 2: Changed for right, right they would make.

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Speaker 3: So you know, what really happened was that the European Tour, you know, went from being the tour that players played to, you know, the tour that players played just enough in order to play the Ryder Cup, which is run by the European Tour and the Professional Golf Golfers Association of America, the PGA, not the PGA Tour. So that's really the caveat of the European Tour for a European player is I have to play this, and let's not like beat around the bush. Why guys play the European Tour as much as they do at this point is strictly because of the Ryder Cup regulations.

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Speaker 1: And they can get some nice appearance fees on the European Tour as well, and so that's an attractive thing too. But the events that Roy McElroy plays are informative as well. He plays the Desert Event in January often and he plays a few events those are rollics events. Yeah, those are lucrative events and they you know, they take place in a part of the world where golfers get a lot of money just to show up. And he plays some events in the fall, plays the DP World Tour Championship and then a Scottish Open or an Irish Open something like that before the Open. It's a convenient schedule for somebody who lives full time more or less in America and plays the PGA Tour, and that is the schedule that a lot of players, European stars are emulating now. This episode is brought to you by Gooder. Gooder makes twenty five dollars active sunglasses for anyone. So it's been a sunny summer here in Portland. I've definitely been relying on my Gooders. I have multiple pairs and they're comfortable, stylish and lightweight. They are one hundred percent UV protective and one hundred percent polarized in all styles. Speaking of styles, Gooder has a ton of them. You can get sunglasses that fit your head size, that have lenses that are specifically suited to a particular activity, and in all kinds of colors and patterns. There are many, many options, and they're very affordable. So it's really not a problem to start a collection that is suited to your range of things that you like to do. So here is the deal for Friday listeners. Gooder is going to give you fifteen percent off your entire order. Go to Gooder dot com. That's goodr dot com slash tfe and get fifteen percent off when you use code TFE at checkout. All orders over fifty dollars get free shipping in the US. Again, that's code TFE at goodr dot com slash tfe. Look good Golf Gooder.

00:19:53
Speaker 3: I think like the other thing about this too is like it's not just the Victor Hovelins, the Can't Miss Star. Take a guy like Stepstraca, an Austrian player who went to school at Georgia and then he went straight to the corner corn Ferry.

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Speaker 2: Tour or at the time, I think it was the web dot com. He went to Canada.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, good point, Like you know, these guys now are just staying there, like that's what it's become, is like they come to America and that's they're gonna you know, this is an easier way to go.

00:20:23
Speaker 2: Up through the ranks.

00:20:24
Speaker 3: They see it as and it's interesting, like the European Tour is supposed to be this esteemed tour. I think I think they award PGA Tour cards. They're going to going forward for the top ten spots on the money list versus on the corn Ferry Tour. They're awarding spots for the top the top thirty. Yeah, so what's actually like, what's actually the you know what tour is the PGA Tour signaling is the better tour, the more you know, advantageous if the end goal and that's I think the big thing that's changed is the end goal for European Tour players. And what we haven't talked to is how live factors into this. But what the end goal for a young aspiring player is the PGA Tour now that has that has is very clear right now until something changes. But you know, if I'm if you tell me you got thirty cards on one tour and ten cards on this tour. Which one are you going with?

00:21:21
Speaker 1: I think that's the huge question. And to bring it back to this week, Sergio Garcia said, at some point now Sergio Garcia, who has signed on with Live and has been very critical of how the European Tour has handled this, you know threat from Live, Sergio Garcia said the European Tour could become the fifth best tour in the world. Now, Keith Pelly, the CEO of the European Tour, came back and said, that's ridiculous. Look at our prize funds compare them to the prize funds of other tours. I don't see how you could argue in any way that will ever become the fifth best tour. And of course he had to say that, that's what he had to say. But Sergio Garcia, as much as I don't agree with a lot of what he says and how he behaves, Sergio Garcia has a point here. There is I think a real possibility that the DP World Tour could become the fifth tour in the world because you have the Asian Tour now supported by Live. That is the Live feeder tour. Live has injected a lot of money into the Asian Tour. That's a huge threat to the European Tour because what are great young European players going to do. Are they going to play on the European Tour or are they going to go to the Asian Tour for more money. I think that will become a possibility pretty soon. And then you have the corn Faery Tour, which, as you've said a couple of times, is offering more cards, and at this point I'm not even sure that the DP World Tour is going to be able to offer more World ranking points than the corn Fairy Tour. And that will be another way in which a young European player might be looking and his options and thinking, well, look, I can do my apprenticeship on the European Tour. I can use the European Tour as a feeder to the PGA Tour. But wouldn't it make more sense just to go straight to the corn Ferry Tour where there are just as many world ranking points and where there are more cards on offer. Why doesn't it make sense for me to go there? And so I think the possibility is that over the next several years, the corn Ferry Tour might overtake the DP World Tour in that sense, and that's the thing that they really have to avoid. That's the thing that they really have to stave off, is the European Tour falling that far.

00:23:35
Speaker 2: Don't you think I completely agree? And I don't.

00:23:38
Speaker 3: I think the writings on the wall, it's not this is not a you know, I think Sergio is very on point with his observation, because the Asian Tour is going to have some gateway to live and what aspiring professional golfers are seeking is the riches of being a great golfer. There right now are two tours that clearly provide that that aspect of golf is the money and the fame, and that's going to be And maybe Live isn't going to have the fame. It doesn't isn't established for building stars yet, but it is established for offering unforeseen money totals. So so the Asian Tour is going to be a viable pathway to the riches of professional golf that is going to be appealing to young players that are looking for that. And then the PGA Tour the clear best pathway to the PGA Tour is through the corn Ferry Tour, so those and then it leaves the European Tour. And this really I think the thing that's what the European Tour has and this is where I think the big question comes down, is they do have properties in history that those other tours don't have, Like the Asian Tour will never have.

00:25:00
Speaker 1: The British PGA or the BMW PGA Championship, they don't have the Scottish Open, they don't have the Irish Open, you know some of those, they don't have a friendsh Open. I mean, these are these are great tournaments with huge histories.

00:25:11
Speaker 3: Yes, so you have you have a basis for a strong leg to stand on. My question would be, you know, and this is I think the really difficult situation that Pelly was put into was, you know, there's there's this war brewing. We're clearly kind of like the middle child here in this war. We don't have the money, we don't there's no way we can compete with the PGA Tour or the or the Live Tour. And I think that the challenging position that the European Tour was put in was like we need to pick a side here, and they picked a side of the PGA Tour. And what I would say is, you know, by picking the PGA Tour, have you essentially you know, put yourself in the coffin that is like, you know, you're a strategic ally of the PGA Tour, and everything's been very clear that you're, you know, becoming a feeder tour to the PGA Tour. And what is the tour going to have more care for the tour the feeder tour they own entirely, or the feeder tour that they are strategic allies with. And this week is a really good example. You know, with regards to banning players, the European Tour wants to ban live players. But my question would be is that a good decision for the European Tour or is that a good decision for the PGA Tour.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: I think it's primarily a good decision for the PGA Tour. And what the DP World Tour needs to think through is to what extent the PGA Tour's interests are bound up with its own interests. Now, clearly it has benefited the DP World Tour this week that they live players are there. There's so much more attention on the BMWPGA Championship this week. We're see so much players and there's in the field is so much stronger, absolutely, and so it benefits this event enormously that this is happening this week. I wonder how sustainable that kind of interest would be on the DP World Tour if they just continue to let live players play. And we should be clear the reason that live players are even there right now is that there's an injunction that's allowing them to play. There's an ongoing court case that hasn't been resolved, and in the meantime they're being allowed to play. That's the difference between the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour at this point. But they're there, and the event is clearly stronger because of it, and that is Yeah, that's a legitimate question for the DP World Tour, but I want to I want to open this up to the broader question of what good these kind of mega events do for the DP World Tour. So say you have like six of these a year on the European Tour. Yeah, Like, so what is it going to be the Scottish Open, the BMWPGA, the DP World Tour Championship, maybe the Dubai Desert Classic, maybe a couple of other events will be elevated and will have fields that consist at least of PGA Tour players and European Tour players and maybe for the next couple of years they might even have live players as well. So say that the European Tour has these events, how does that really benefit the DP World Tour overall? I guess the DP World Tour makes a lot of money off event.

00:28:32
Speaker 2: I mean, I think this is a band aid really for them.

00:28:35
Speaker 3: You know, this is an opportunity for them to create a fix for the for the rest of their events. It is an opportunity to sell sponsors and fund other things that you're doing. And I and that's where I would say, is this a viable long term solution for the European Tour Because you know, everybody, here's the issue with this, right, is that if your big events are put on and the big players that come to those big events, none of which play in your other events, is this really your event?

00:29:11
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:29:12
Speaker 3: And I think that's the thing that they grapple with because you know, John rom brought up a point he was speaking of how frustrating. He was about live players being there and a good friend of his who's played in twenty European Tour events being an alternate in the event, here's a regular player on the on the European Tour that cannot play in this because Taylor Goocher, you know, so and so is on the tour. And that's the issue that it runs into, is if if you're regular members, the members that come week in, week out and play your events then can't get into the big ones unless they're a top flight player. Are you doing your tour as service?

00:29:49
Speaker 1: Like?

00:29:50
Speaker 3: Are you building a fan base for your tour or are you building a fan base for six events that are primarily events that most people would identify as PGA Tour events?

00:30:02
Speaker 1: Is again essentially.

00:30:05
Speaker 3: Exactly effectively, what's happening is the Genesis Scottish Invitational is becoming a WGC and how long before it's just a PGA Tour event is what I would ask if I was in the room, How long before our European PGA is just a PGA Tour event?

00:30:23
Speaker 2: You know? This is? This is the slippery slope you're.

00:30:26
Speaker 3: Heading down now where I would I would push back here on where they're at is. My question would be, are we better being Switzerland? Who's we in this case the European Tour?

00:30:40
Speaker 1: Is it better for them to remain neutral?

00:30:42
Speaker 3: Is it better for us to be neutral, to have our flagship events, to have our stake in the Ryder Cup, knowing that we are going to be a formative factor in the game because we own half of the I don't know, we don't know what the Masters is worth, but half of the other most profitable event in golf.

00:31:03
Speaker 1: And it's also, as you're alluding to, it is a huge bit of leverage for the European Tour that presumably they should be using at this point. Now. I don't pretend to know everything that has gone into the negotiations between the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour, but you would think that if they were Switzerland in this scenario, that the PGA Tour would punish them for that right. And it seems like the DP World Tour feels that to an extent it relies on the PGA Tour that having a relationship with the PGA Tour is extremely valuable to them because a lot of their players want that relationship with the PGA Tour because they want eventually to play on the PGA Tour, right, not all of them, not all of them, but most of the really really good players, most of the star players want to end up on the PGA Tour, And so if that relationship is severed, that would seem to be a major thing that would push players away from the DP Tour and toward the Asian Tour and Live on one side, and toward the corn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour on the other side. That's what would be my response to that.

00:32:15
Speaker 3: So, yeah, and I think that's the tricky situation, right, I don't envy. I think he's in the hardest pell. He's in the hardest position of anybody in golf because he holds the least amount of cards. Right, He's got valuable He's got one very valuable property and very few other valuable properties, you know, And this is what it comes down to. And he has devolved into a feeder tour over the last two decades, And that's the tricky situation they're in. Would they be would you put on better events week in week out if live players, PGA Tour players and European Tour players alike we were able to play in them, you know, and welcomed with open arms, would you have a better shot at command world ranking points.

00:33:01
Speaker 2: I think the point you made.

00:33:02
Speaker 3: About the corn Ferry Tour potentially outweighing world ranking points in comparison to the European Tour on a week in, week out basis that is the final death blow to the European Tour when that happens. So to me, if I'm Keith Pelly, what I'm looking at is we you know, the best way we can drive money from broadcast rights from event sponsors is to field the best fields possible.

00:33:34
Speaker 2: And what avenue can we possibly go?

00:33:38
Speaker 3: Is it the injection that and this is where you know we don't know numbers, We don't have the numbers. Is the injection of the tour into four events a year of ours more valuable than us fielding better tournaments thirty weeks a year because we are you know, all of a sudden, live players are coming for the world ranking points. The other thing I would say is, like, you know, in terms of the live players, they're going to have contracts that say they need to play Asian Tour events, and I think they're all different right, every player has different contracts. But if Dustin Johnson is seeking out world ranking points, where is Dustin Johnson more like likely to play the French Open or like in Thailand.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: I mean, he would prefer to play at the French Open presumably, But we're looking five years down the line now. Dustin Johnson might not be around five years down the line. He's probably going to be fishing in Florida. But say he were, you know, five years down the line, I think a lot of Asian Tour events are going to be really boosted. That's what it looks like right now. There is a huge, huge sovereign wealth fund that's going to continue to inject money into the Asian Tour to make it a good partner for Live, and so Asian Tour events are going to rise and rise. I think that's a huge threat obviously for the DP World Tour because those events compete directly with the likes of the French Open. So if we're talking about five years down the line, I would assume that the random event in Thailand, if it's part of this international series that's being established by Live on the Asian Tour, that that event is going to be a lot more attractive to the likes of DJ because it's going to offer more money and it's probably going to offer more world ranking points at some point, and so, yeah, the DP World Tour is in such a difficult position here. Now. I want to get a little bit clearer about what we think the DP World Tour really should do here, because I'm not sure that I'm totally clear on that myself. I do think the elevated events seem to be the way to go here. I don't think that establishing itself or accepting its status as a feeder tour is necessarily the worst thing in the world for the DP World Tour. But I think that one thing that has to happen is that the DP World Tour really needs to maintain its status above the corn Faery Tour. I think that it just has to do that, and it has to compete well against the Asian Tour, And so how can the DP World Tour do that? I guess they can continue to get these elevated events that attract you know, future Ryder Cup players, European Ryder Cup players as well as PGA Tour stars. Who knows if live players are going to be part of that mix. Maybe they will be, maybe they won't, and then the rest of the events are going to essentially take on the form of feeder tour events. And it's just a matter of how good those events are, I guess, And so I don't know, what is that what this looks like, is that the best possible outcome here?

00:36:46
Speaker 3: You know, I think the entrepreneur me would say, you got to go it alone. You know, neither of these effectively they are two decisions. They had three decisions, right, hostile take over by the PGA Tour, which is effectively what they decided, right, it's not a hostile takeover.

00:37:05
Speaker 1: It's a strategic alliance. That's the perfect.

00:37:10
Speaker 3: Way to encapsulate the strategic alliance is that PGA Tour players were paid out a stipend to come to the Scottish Open, a travel stipend, but European tour players who went over to the Barbersol and those events, those weak PGA Tour opposite field events received no such travel stipend.

00:37:28
Speaker 2: So you know, it's an alliance or you know, what what is it?

00:37:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, to clarify the Barbersol and the sorry, what was the other event, the Barracuda, I think of the Baracute, Barbisol and the Barracuda, which are opposite field events. Right, those are the two other co sanctioned events that happened this year in addition to the Scottish Open. Obviously, the Scottish Open was the one that was elevated, and the Barbasol and the Barracuda were was just a kind of you know, here's here's elevated.

00:37:56
Speaker 3: Those were elevated events in terms of compared to what they were years before because the fields were better by that European Tour influence, like those were.

00:38:06
Speaker 1: They wasn't playing those events. That wasn't Justin Thomas wasn't playing those.

00:38:11
Speaker 3: Events exactly, but those were significantly better, that's how. But those are PGA Tour events, right, they have they have gotten stuff out of that, so you know, but they you know, the the guys that are playing for a million dollars a week on the European Tour get no travel stipend. But the guys that are playing playing for seven million dollars a week on the PGA Tour get the trial travel stipend, which is which is comedic and everything, but their choices were really I think succumb to the PGA Tour, succumb to the Live Tour. Both of those are are basically you know that there's financial backing safe. Those are safe, financial backing havens. And I think they picked the moral high ground of the PGA tour. Which of the safe choices was, you know, the much more palatable one. The other choice, which was which is the scariest choice and the one that gets you fired or makes you the hero, would have been going alone and saying we are going to stay independent and we are going to ride this out because we believe that trends are cyclical, and just as we once were the Good Tour, once we were an equal tour, a relatively equal tour to the PGA Tour, we will be again. We just have to get through these dark days. And they chose they did not choose that, and I think at that point, to a certain extent, they have accepted their fate as a feeder tour.

00:39:44
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because I don't recall hearing that going it alone as you're describing it, was ever an option on the table. There have been reports that partnering with Live was an option that was at least considered in I think it was July twenty twenty one. There was a meeting in Malta between Live officials, DP World officials and European Tour executives where Golf Saudi basically gave a presentation to the DP World Tour what would soon be known as the DP World Tour. That was essentially the same presentation that they gave to the Asian Tour. You know, you can have a little bit of equity and Live. We can inject some money into your tour and we would have this little relationship going. It would be essentially a strategic alliance. That presentation was given to Keith Pelly and other European tour officials in Malta in mid twenty twenty one. That was reported by Michael McEwan. But I have not heard of anybody. I mean, I'm obviously not privy to Keith Pelly's inner thoughts. I don't think anybody has really brought up the idea of going it alone and kind of reverting to the European tour of the nineteen eighties and nineties, which saw itself as independent from the PGA Tour. Now, I'd have to think through what that would cost the European Tour. Clearly, Keith Pelly believes that if it win it alone, that it would be punished by the PGA Tour. It would lose this relationship with the PGA Tour, which is valuable right now. But I think what you're pointing out is that this relationship with the PGA Tour also hurts them. It relegates them to secondary status.

00:41:34
Speaker 3: What they always had, they're always their card in their back pocket was always going to be the Ryder Cup, and you were all into a certain extent, you were always going to field seven or eight really good events because of the Ryder Cup with your players.

00:41:50
Speaker 2: You had appearance fees.

00:41:51
Speaker 3: You have very wealthy countries that are not disimilar to Saudi Arabia backing your tour. Let's not like there are they had. They have appearance fees, they have the ability to pay appearance fees. They have things in their tour that were clear advantages. They chose the Cowardice route out.

00:42:13
Speaker 1: Ouch you think it's really it was really that bad of a decision.

00:42:17
Speaker 3: I don't think it was a great I just think they've made their bed at this point.

00:42:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that they made their bed twenty years ago. I think the European Tour was already a feeder tour for the PGA Tour as soon as Tiger happened, as soon as the wgc's happened, as soon as European stars like Luke Donald and Ian Poulter began to see the PGA Tour as the goal of their career rather than as an occasional kind of sprinkling of extra money in their careers.

00:42:49
Speaker 3: And I think the shortsightedness of it, though, is that, you know, there were players along the line. And I'm not saying Nicholas cole Starts was a great player, but there were players and Lee West was an example of this player. Collum Montgomery was an example of this player that just decided that the American Tour wasn't for them and that the European Tour offered them something, a culture, a camaraderie that that fell so far short on the on the PGA Tour. And I think that that's the thing that might be go undervalued. You know, cole Starts had the famous quote, I believe in the Sports Illustrated article. You know, the PGA Tour is the same thing every week. It's the same damn Caesar salad every week and week out, and I can't do it anymore. I felt like I was I think he said, I felt like I was dying inside.

00:43:43
Speaker 1: Oh that's sad though, but yeah, I mean I can imagine it feels that way if you're a European and you and you grow up, you know, going from country to country, having having this kind of experience of travel across national borders, going going to really different places pretty easily. But that's not an experience that you have in America. America's so much more spread out. And yeah, I can see how it would feel that way, and I think that that's a real feeling that European players have. We've seen European players just not thrive on the PGA Tour, Lee Westwood being a great example. He just never played as well on the PGA Tour as he did on the European Tour during his prime, not because he wasn't a great player, Sevy absolutely, And this wasn't because they weren't as great as we thought they were, or as great as they showed themselves to be on the European Tour. It's just because it's hard to go to a place that's not your native country and try to make a career there, and so I think that's a real thing.

00:44:42
Speaker 3: So I think that's the thing is like, you know, in a way, the next twenty years or so, you know, we don't know what think about twenty nineteen and where we are now. And I think that's where I would push back on what they decided and how they've handled everything, is that you know, you always have to give yourself a fighting chance to come out on top. And to me, their administration decided to stop fighting.

00:45:13
Speaker 2: And it's sad.

00:45:14
Speaker 3: The thing, like I remember watching European Tour golf as a kid and everything. But one of the things, one of my favorite books I've ever read is Michael Bamberger Berger's To the Lynxland and it really gave you a great feel of what the culture on the European Tour in the eighties was. And you know, and to me, that's the sad thing that's at jeopardy here is we've seen what the PGA tour does to historic things. They wipe away the history and make them their own. And that's the thing that I fear the most about the European Tour is that we will in three years look at it and be like, wow, they have twenty spots that go to the PGA Tour and it's just continued to become more more like the corn Ferry Tour, and you know, the big events are controlled and really dominated by the PGA Tour and all the history is gone. And that's the thing that's sad. You know, they've started down the road of every time they have to go back to the table to negotiate, the tour gets more and more control in their organization, and it just seems like the writings on the wall, there's a matter of time before it becomes the PGA Tour Europe.

00:46:27
Speaker 1: I wonder whether Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood would agree with what you're saying right now, because it's clear that they're unhappy. Right those guys have made it abundantly clear that they're not happy with the direction of the DP World Tour, and their concerns, as they've put them, have been rooted in this idea of the DP World Tour becoming a feeder tour. My response, my initial reaction to those concerns would be, well, would it be better if the DP World Tour were a feeder Tour to Live. Would Ian and Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia like that more? But I wonder if what they would really want is for the European Tour just to be, as you're saying, neutral, to let them continue to play in their events, and to kind of try to chart this middle path, not partnering or doing these strategic alliances with either the PGA Tour or Live. I wonder if that's what would make these kind of veteran European Tour players happy.

00:47:28
Speaker 3: I also wonder if the European Tour we talked about twenty years ago the WGCs, if the European Tour had less of a we want to play nice with the PGA Tour. You know, if you go back ten years, fifteen years, had really looked at how do how do we become the great tour again? You know, we've seen the exodus from the PGA Tour to Live and it has a very very common, you know, look of players, their international A lot of the players that are leaving are international players. There's clearly an appetite for an international tour, and I think the missteps go back to ten years ago and almost like a lack of ambition.

00:48:16
Speaker 1: Do you think it's over at this point? Though? I mean, do we have any like positive suggestions given that the strategic alliance is a sure thing, It's an established thing at this point. We've known about the strategic alliance since late twenty twenty. The European Tour is pretty locked in with the PGA Tour at this point. What is its best move at this point or has it lost all of its leverage? Shout out Phil Nicholson.

00:48:38
Speaker 3: I think the leverage is kind of gone. I think the only the eventual outcome is that it becomes part of the PGA Tour.

00:48:46
Speaker 1: And that's what Rory wants. Think he wants there to be one big world tour. He said this before and this week he said in his press conference he acknowledged listen, the center of the golf universe right now, the pro golf universe is in the US. That's what he said. Roy McElroy is maybe the most powerful person in all of this right now and this whole discussion over the future of pro golf. He is, if not the most powerful person, then certainly one of the one of the three or four most powerful people. So what he wants is a big deal. I think that what he's looking for is for there to be a kind of ATP like structure, a Tennis like structure to the golf world where the DP World Tour, the corn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour are kind of amalgamated together and you know, sharing a common point system and players can work their way up through different routes in that.

00:49:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the thing that you'd have to look to is like, how do you save you know, at this point, how do you save the legacy and the history of some of these events, you know, and like a per for example, Brendan Porreth did a flashback Friday on the shotgun start of the World Match Play, which was not a European Tour event, but when the WGCs came along, it effectively killed event that started in nineteen sixty four. And if you look at the list of winners, maybe the greatest list of winners, Like it was a very small event, so the only great players got into it. But like, this is what happens when when things become at you know, combined together, when you let the PGA Tour in, they kill off your history, they kill off everything. And I think the thing that I would you know, at this point, the best case scenario for the European Tour, I believe now that they have chosen a path of tying themselves to the tour, is some way to select out your like ten events and just say, you know, these have to be a big deal or else we're out.

00:50:51
Speaker 1: Well to all our European listeners, We're very sorry that we can provide more hope here. I was trying to find a little bit, but it's it seems like the DP World Tour is in a really, really tough situation. So this is actually a topic that I'd love to hear from listeners about. We don't have all the answers when it comes to the future of the European Tour. Obviously, this is an enormously complex question, and so I'm genuinely interested in what people think on this topic, what people believe the right path forward might be for this tour. But thank you to everybody for listening. Thank you, Andy. We'll talk again soon. This episode of the Friday Podcast was edited by Meg Atkins. If you've been enjoying the pod, please consider leaving a rating and review in iTunes. Just doing that helps some new listeners find us and is a great way of supporting what we're doing here. Thanks for listening.