Hats off to fun Pelley for his leadership of DP World Tour
It’s on record that I don’t think football tops are appropriate on a golf course, but this was different. During a game I was involved in at The Renaissance Club, Keith Pelley wore both a Celtic and Rangers shirt at different times as he had a bit of fun with the two others in our group – Stephen Gallacher and Marc Warren – due to their well-known affection for the two Old Firm teams.
On the first green in a game that was arranged by him in the build-up to the first Genesis Scottish Open at the East Lothian venue in 2019, Pelley was sizing up a birdie putt when he suddenly plucked a piece of paper out of his back pocket. “What one would you recommend?” he said in Warren’s direction of it being a page from a golf magazine on the World Cup winner’s top putting tips.
Apart from the fact I felt totally out of my depth as far as the golf was concerned as Pelley can play and the success enjoyed by both Gallacher and Warren speaks for itself, it was one of the most enjoyable days I’ve ever had on a golf course and I have been recalling it as Pelley prepares to step down from his role as the DP World Tour chief executive today before returning to his native Canada to take up a dream job as president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd.
Having chatted with him at The Players Championship in Florida a fortnight ago, it’s clear to see that Pelley is buzzing about a job that will see him oversee the running of the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL), Toronto Raptors (NBA), Toronto Argonauts (Canadian Football League) and Toronto FC (MLS). But he’ll always keep an eye on the golf world.
Pelley has faced a difficult time during his spell with the Wentworth-based European Tour group, notably so due to a global pandemic, but ask those who actually know what has been going on behind the scenes in golf over the past couple of years and the vast majority will tell you the same thing about the man who has been leading it. “Keith has done a brilliant job,” Gallacher declared earlier in the year after it emerged that Pelley’s reign was coming to an end after eight-and-a-half years, with his deputy, Guy Kinnings, stepping up to replace him.
Lots of players, including the likes of Ewen Ferguson, should be eternally grateful to Pelley for the playing opportunities he was able to provide during Covid while his tenure took in two hugely-successful Ryder Cups on European soil in France and Italy, both, of course, producing home wins.
Some, of course, will continue to question why he brought the Saudis to golf’s table and then didn’t do a deal with PIF that could have brought riches to the DP World Tour and Challenge Tour, but it wasn’t as straightforward as many people like to think and Pelley, along with the other members of the executive team, remain confident that a strategic alliance struck with the PGA Tour instead is the best way forward for the European Tour group.
Only time will tell, of course, but Pelley deserves praise for his overall leadership and, as that day at The Renaissance showed, being a bundle of fun and energy at the same time.