After the season-closing DP World Tour Championship in November, one of the key initiatives of the strategic alliance between the European circuit and the PGA Tour will come to fruition as the top 10 players on the Race to Dubai (not otherwise exempt) earn PGA Tour cards for next year.
One DP World Tour pro who can’t understand the arrangement is Eddie Pepperell. The Englishman aired his views on The Chipping Forecast podcast, describing the arrangement as a “disaster” for his tour.
“I personally think it’s a disaster for the DP World Tour," said Pepperell. "I can’t think of any good business that tries to not retain its clients, just give the best ones away, that makes no sense to me. But from a player’s perspective who all have, frankly, ambitions to play at the biggest stage, which now clearly is the PGA Tour, it’s good for them.”
He then went further, suggesting it could pose an existential threat to the DP World Tour. He said: “How long can both those be in existence, because to me it doesn’t seem sustainable that the Tour can continue to operate successfully while giving away its best players, but equally the players think it’s a good thing.
"It’s extremely formal now to the point where next year or the year after players are all going to be falling back into a very high category on the DP World Tour anyway so there really is no incentive next year for these guys to play any tournaments on the DP World Tour other than their minimum events, which I just can’t get my head around as a strategy commercially from the DP World Tour.”
The DP World Tour and PGA Tour's strategic alliance has been criticised by Eddie Pepperell
Ultimately, the two-time DP World Tour winner thinks the agreement comes down to money. He continued: “I guess it’s in return, frankly, from all the investment that the PGA Tour are making, and to be clear that is going to be well into the hundreds and hundreds of millions across a five-year period, so the PGA Tour clearly want to see some return, part of the return is getting some very good European players.”
The 32-year-old even thinks those who secure PGA Tour cards will find it tough once they make the leap. He explained: “They’re not going to get many, if any, of the elevated events, so it’s going to be an extremely difficult card, playing for reduced points as well to actually get into the top 70 the following season on the PGA Tour.”
Earlier in the week, the DP World Tour announced two new membership opportunities for PGA Tour players to play more regularly on the European-based circuit from next season, which Chairman of the DP World Tour’s Tournament Committee David Howell described as a “perfect example” or the strategic alliance working.
However, that's not something Pepperell believes will have much take-up. In response a message on X (formerly Twitter) from golf music parodist Sam Harrop, he wrote: "I think that it’s part of the whole ‘integration push’ but realistically, we won’t see it used very much by the American players."
I think that it’s part of the whole ‘integration push’ but realistically, we won’t see it used very much by the American players. To be clear, the whole 10 cards to the PGAT is something I think is bad for the DPWT and its business. (I talk about this on latest Chipping Forecast)October 24, 2023
Pepperell is not the only player to criticise the alliance, with others also thinking the PGA Tour is getting the better side of the deal, including Scott Hend, who told Golf Monthly it makes the DP World Tour “even weaker” and describing it as a “feeder tour.”
This week, Pepperell is in the field for the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in Doha.
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