DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley makes shock decision to stand down
The DP World Tour chief executive, Keith Pelley, is quitting after eight and a half years to take up a job in his native Canada. The 60-year-old’s surprise move comes as the DP Tour, formerly the European Tour, remains in negotiations with the PGA Tour to form an alliance with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls LIV Golf.
The announcement of Pelley’s departure emerged a day after the R&A chief executive, Martin Slumbers, announced he would step down by the end of the year.
Pelley will become the president and chief executive of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and the MLS side Toronto FC. Guy Kinnings, the deputy chief executive and Ryder Cup executive director, will succeed Pelley from 2 April.
“It has been an incredible honour to be the chief executive of this wonderful institution for the past eight and a half years,” Pelley said. “When I came over from Canada back in 2015, I set out to create a culture of innovation and to grow our prize funds and our Tour for our members by ensuring that we appealed to new, younger and more diverse audiences.
“We have done that and so much more because our players, staff, partners, broadcasters and fans have all fundamentally bought into that philosophy that we are in the entertainment industry. This role with MLSE, and the chance to be involved with my home town sports teams in Toronto, was the one opportunity that I simply could not resist.”
Pelley’s time in charge of the DP World Tour is certain to divide opinion after he successfully guided the organisation through the Covid pandemic and then signed a “strategic alliance” with the PGA Tour in November 2020. That provided a much-needed infusion of cash as the PGA Tour bought a stake in European Tour Productions, but a strengthening of the alliance in June 2022 drew criticism for giving PGA Tour cards to the top 10 players – who were not already exempt – on the 2023 Race to Dubai. Eddie Pepperell labelled it a “disaster” that made no business sense, while LIV Golf’s Sergio García claimed the DP World Tour was a “feeder tour” set to become the fifth-best in the world.
That drew an angry response from Pelley, who was pivotal in bringing Saudi Arabia into the game with the formation of the Saudi International but insisted that a lucrative chance to fully partner with the Saudis was not turned down.
“I know that many people still quote the Malta meeting [in July 2021] and the supposed US$1bn offer that was made to us by Golf Saudi, which is a large part of the reason behind the claim that we missed an opportunity with the Saudis,” Pelley said before the 2022 BMW PGA Championship. “There’s only one word to describe that claim, and that is ‘fictitious’.
“And you can ask any member of our board of directors, and they will unanimously confirm that it was not an offer, it was not a deal, it was merely a marketing presentation put together on behalf of Golf Saudi. When it was reviewed by our board of directors on 7 September 2021 it was dismissed.”