It's been a turbulent couple of years for the DP World Tour. The coronavirus pandemic has caused widespread problems, putting enormous pressure on finances and sponsorships. It has not been able to weather the storm as well as its American ally, the PGA Tour.
Then, when things were winding down, the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour showed up and threw the world of professional men’s golf into a tailspin. While the PGA Tour was undoubtedly hit and hit, the DP World Tour found itself in a more valuable position.
It has almost become the forgotten tour. The much-maligned “strategic alliance” with the PGA Tour has failed to produce any tangible results, with the tour’s best players from 2023 playing regularly in the United States this year.
Meanwhile, tour legends such as Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell remain in exile, leaving behind lesser-known tournaments and matches that don't get heart pumping.
Keith Pelley did a good job while at the helm – often dealing well with unfortunate circumstances beyond his control – but he has now left for greener pastures, leaving Guy Kinnings to pick up the pieces.
One thing the new DP World Tour chief executive will be increasingly concerned about is the strength of the field on this proud and historic professional golf circuit.
Incredibly, outside of the Grand Slams, the top 20 players in the world have not played a DP World Tour event in 136 days. The last time they played on the DP World Tour was at the Dubai Desert Classic in January, about four and a half months ago.
Equally concerning is that only two top-50 players have played on the DP World Tour since Dubai – Shane Lowry and Matthieu Pavon at the Porsche Singapore Open and Pavon at the ISPS Handa Championship in Japan.
Shane Lowry attends the Porsche Singapore Open
(Image source: Getty Images)
Of the 13 non-major DP World Tour events since the Dubai Desert Classic, only two have featured players ranked in the top 50. Even the top 100 are few and far between.
But why is the situation so bad? Because the aforementioned tour legends are all playing on the LIV Golf Tour, as are the likes of Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Melonk – although they are unlikely to play many DP World Tour events, or even any events, between February and May.
Players who finished in the top 10 of the 2023 DP World Tour standings and had not yet earned an exemption received 2024 PGA Tour cards, meaning we haven’t seen Ryan Fox, Bob McIntyre, Victor Perez, Sami Valimaki and Thorbjorn Olsen since the Middle East.
Additionally, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Matt Fitzpatrick, Sean Lowry, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Nicola Hoggard and Ludwig Arbery have all played a DP World Tour event since January.
In fact, it would be a surprise to see any of them in Europe before the Scottish Open in mid-July. These stars have given up their home tours and only play when it suits them. The problem is that the DP World Tour has no influence.
If European Ryder Cup players were not required to be members of the DP World Tour (and thus meet the membership criteria), you have to wonder how many would abandon the tour altogether.
The tour is stuck in a negative cycle. Some of the main players have left and many are playing elsewhere, which means that the attendances at DPWT events are not as high as they used to be. This means fewer world ranking points, making it less attractive to play on the former European Tour.
(Image source: Getty Images)
To give a couple of recent examples, the DP World Tour Championship at the end of the 2023 season had a field rating of 153. The PGA Tour event that week was the RMS Classic — a PGA Tour fall tournament that traditionally isn’t one of the most prestigious. It had a field rating of 217. The Dunhill Links Championship, meanwhile, had a worse rating than the Sanderson Farms Championship.
This season, PGA Tour head-to-head events such as the Myrtle Beach Classic and the Corales Punta Cana Championship have easily outclassed regular DP World Tour events. In the eighth week of the rankings, the Asian Tour's International Series in Oman was rated higher than the Amazing Kenya Open.
Finally, the Dubai Desert Classic, arguably one of the top five events on tour, had 172 entries, while the PGA Tour's non-signature event, the American Express, had 323. The disparity is clear.
It wasn’t like this before. The changes to the world ranking process in August 2022 and the introduction of the world points ranking appear to have had an adverse impact on the DP World Tour.
In 2019, before the pandemic and the arrival of LIV Golf, events such as the DP World Tour Championship, Nedbank Golf Challenge, Italian Open, Alfred Dunhill Links and BMW PGA Championship were ranked far higher than their American counterparts.
Wentworth West Course 18th Hole
(Image source: Getty Images)
I don't know where the DP World Tour will go next. The strategic alliances don't seem to have brought any real benefits and have led to a talent drain to the PGA Tour, dwindling tournament attendance and dwindling television audiences.
In addition, few Americans attend non-union sanctioned tournaments, and top European players sign up for minimal competition. The DPWT also cannot compete financially with the PGA Tour or LIV Golf events.
If more top players switch to the LIV and that tour continues to fail to earn world ranking points, it's easy to imagine a scenario where the Asian Tour overtakes the DPWT.
To get back to their previous level, Europe's top players would need to sacrifice their earning potential in the U.S. and return to competition. But who would turn down $20 million in prize money and the world ranking points that come with it to play a mid-tier DP World Tour event? That's the problem you face when money becomes more important than history, tradition and legacy.
The only thing the DP World Tour could do is raise the minimum number of tournaments its members must play, since it has effectively ceded half the year to the PGA Tour. That would really reveal how much the Ryder Cup means to European players. But if you suggest that, you're sure to get a backlash.
The DP World Tour was in a quagmire. In hindsight, working with Saudi Arabia might have been a better option.
