Mcilroy drives US backing for European game
PGA and DP World Tour join forces to counter rebel series Deal offers players pathway to America and £125m cash lift
Rory Mcilroy played a vital role in securing a historic PGA Tour deal for his home circuit that includes a £125million cash injection and a direct American pathway for DP World Tour players, as the traditional powers launched their fightback against the Saudi rebel circuit.
Mcilroy is on the players’ advisory committee of the PGA Tour and Telegraph Sport has learnt that the Northern Irishman’s input was crucial in helping the DP World Tour – formerly the European Tour – ensure a package that Wentworth HQ is confident will thwart the existential threat of the LIV Golf Series.
As the 48-man field was assembling for the second $25million LIV event in Portland, Oregon, Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour chief executive, fronted an emergency players meeting yesterday at the Irish Open in which he laid out the benefits of the announcement.
Inevitably, the two main carrots to satisfy an audience comprising a majority of loyalists, but also those who believed Pelley should have gone with the Saudi millions, were money and playing opportunities.
The PGA Tour cards up for grabs is hugely important and it is understood that this is what Mcilroy pushed for most passionately with commissioner Jay Monahan. There has never before been a route from the European circuit into what Pelley called “the most powerful entity in the world of golf ” and there will doubtless be accusations of Europe becoming “a feeder league”.
Yet Pelley summarily dismissed this, calling it “a wonderful opportunity for our players”, and pointed out that as it is for the top 10 players in the standings who do not already have PGA Tour membership, it is certainly not an avenue reserved simply for the heavyweights.
Last year, Scotland’s Calum Hill, ranked 176th in the world, would have gained his US card, despite finishing 32nd in the Order of Merit.
With LIV dishing out hundreds of millions in signing-on fees for names such as Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson Dechambeau and Brooks Koepka, and eight-figure sums for European heavyweights such as Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, the Tour’s finances will have to, at the very least, not appear overly paltry.
And courtesy of Monahan upping the PGA Tour stake in his partner’s media arm – European Tour Productions – from 15 to 40 per cent, Pelley now has funds he could not have dreamt off during the pandemic. The coffers are boosted by an estimated $150million (£122million).
Pelley would not divulge the exact purse figures to the media, but to the players he guaranteed of a rise of combined prize funds – not including the majors and World Golf Championship events – to almost £120million in 2014 and nigh on £140million in 2027 .
That is an increase from just over £100million this year. To an evermore appreciative room in the Mount Juliet clubhouse in Cokilkenny, there was also a vow of “once and for all going to deal with your hotel costs”, as well as assisting with travel, both of which were bugbears to the pros. Pelley and Monahan were keen to stress the independence of the Tours and nowhere is this better seen than in their disciplinary systems. Monahan issued indefinite bans to his rebels as soon as they had teed off in the LIV event in Hertfordshire three weeks ago, while Pelley took a fortnight to announce bans from next week’s Scottish Open – the first jointly-sanctioned tournament between the Tours – as well as £100,000 fines.
Appeal letters have already hit the Wentworth HQ mat from aggrieved players threatening lawyers’ involvement, which shows the legal tightrope Pelley must walk.
Monahan, however, did give a glimpse of a future in which the long-mooted global tour could be a rational graduation of this relationship. “We are only just getting started,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a bad-tempered press conference in Portland, Koepka claimed he only decided to join LIV after the US Open finished 10 days ago, despite Telegraph Sport exclusively reporting his defection on the Tuesday afterwards.