'Categorically Untrue' - DP World Tour Denies Keith Pelley LIV Golf Report

The DP World Tour has issued a statement following reports that CEO Keith Pelley attended the inaugural LIV Golf Series event at Centurion Club last week. It was previously reported that the Tour is considering a partnership deal with LIV Golf Investments and Pelley's attendance at the Hertfordshire event was to discuss finer details. These have been denied.

"We are aware of some reports in the media that DP World Tour Chief Executive Keith Pelley attended the event at Centurion Club last week," the statement read. "This is categorically untrue as Keith was in Sweden attending the Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed tournament."

Whilst the Tour has denied Pelley's attendance at the event, it did not address that it is reportedly working on a commercial partnership with LIV Golf Investments. Such a deal is said to be beneficial to both parties with one closely connected source viewing it as a "safety net to the start up circuit" whose core product involves only 48 players teeing it up per event. 

LIV Golf Investments would provide financial backing that in turn would increase DP World Tour purses and provide some mechanism for players to move freely between Tours. It may also provide some form of qualification to the LIV Golf Series so players aren't solely cherry picked on reputation alone.

The DP World Tour has not spoken publicly of such a deal but recently broke its silence on those that played in the LIV Golf Series curtain raiser despite being denied release. The PGA Tour pushed to suspend players once the first ball of the Series was struck but the DP World Tour has adopted a different approach. 

In a memo to players, Pelley expressed the "complexity" of the situation before adding: "We [DP World Tour] are still evaluating an overall course of action. We will use the next seven days to continue to assess the impact the two conflicting events in the UK had on our own tournaments played in those weeks (the Porsche European Open and the Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed) as well as on your Tour overall.”

With reports the DP World Tour are working on a deal with LIV Golf Investments, a Golf Monthly exclusive has revealed that in fact the PGA Tour and DP World Tour are in the "advanced" stages of negotiations in a seismic deal that would formalise the strategic alliance between the two and combat the threat of the LIV Golf Series.