Paul McGinley: What next for the DP World Tour after winning hearing against LIV golfers? | Golf News

DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley released a statement after they won their arbitration hearing against LIV players

Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley gives his verdict on the DP World Tour winning their arbitration hearing and explains what it can mean for golf going forward…

The announcement is not a reason for rejoicing or celebration but instead a day to understand that the governing bodies and their administrators, in any sport, have the right now to regulate their sport.

I am not on the DP World Tour board anymore, for no other reason than I have done two three-year terms, but it is for them and the players’ committed to decide where they go from here. It is a double-edged sword, it is tinged with sadness, but the Tour has the control and leverage back in how they handle things.

The obvious implication is the players can’t come back and play our biggest events and play whenever it suits them, with the DP World Tour having the ability to dictate terms if and when LIV players are going to be allowed to compete.

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Jamie Weir explains what the tribunal ruling means for players who chose to play in LIV Golf events having been refused a ‘release’ by the DP World Tour.

There might be a commercial reason to welcome back a LIV player to an event in their home country, for example, but in that scenario it would be under the terms of the DP World Tour.

The LIV players will of course be disappointed they can’t necessarily play the biggest tournaments, because they’ve been able to do that in recent months at the likes of the BMW PGA Championship, the DP World Tour Championship and the other big DP World Tour events, as they had won the injunction last July.

At least the DP World Tour now has the right to make decisions on their entry, because before that it was LIV players coming back whenever it suited them. The power has changed and that is what is most important about this ruling more than anything else.

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After the DP World Tour won its legal battle against 12 LIV Golf players, Paul McGinley admits they had to protect their interests but admits it’s a ‘sad day’ nonetheless for the sport

We had a big number of LIV players involved at Wentworth last year and in Abu Dhabi in January, which meant lots of the Challenge Tour graduates and those on other exemptions couldn’t get a look in.

It will be up to Keith Pelley, Guy Kennings, the players, the players committee, and the board to decide if they are going to let them back under certain conditions or not, but I imagine there is a duty of care more to the guys coming through more than there is to the guys who have gone to LIV.

To have the LIV players involved in the Ryder Cup at any level, whether as a player or as a vice-captain, is a massive risk for Luke Donald. A lot of heated stuff has been said and we would have to get to a stage where things have settled down before they may ever be involved.

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DP World Tour chief executive, Keith Pelley says LIV Golf players will still be allowed to be picked for the Ryder Cup

We have got to move on from what LIV do and not react to what they do, as this result means the DP World Tour now has the leverage to dictate more about when and where these players can play.

This is not about excluding the LIV players, it is about using them to our benefit because the boot is on the other foot. If they want to play in a tournament then the option is still there for them to be allowed to, but it has to offer commercial value and be on the DP World Tour’s terms.

What does this mean for the strategic alliance?

The DP World Tour entered into a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour that is still in the embryo stages. Things that are put in place like 10 cards for the PGA Tour have to settle down and it is going to take a year or two before we are going to realise if that is a good thing or not or if the number is correct.

Ideally, can everybody not just take a big deep breath, let the dust settle on this, and observe how things evolve? Everybody is jumping to conclusions straight away that are not fair. This is a huge change in the history of the DP World Tour and we just need to trust that things are done for the right reasons. This may take time to get to the place that really works for all concerned.

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Cameron Smith says the fields in LIV Golf aren’t as strong as on the PGA Tour but insists they still have a lot of players that can compete at the Masters

To say that we can compete with the PGA Tour is nonsense in this commercial driven world, but why would people want to disregard us and call us a feeder Tour? We will never be the big guys, we can never compete toe to toe, but the relationship with the PGA Tour has never been better.

The DP World Tour may well have considered trying to do a deal with the LIV organisers or with the PGL/Raine Group in the past, but did not. We went with the path which clearly had the least risk associated and that was with the PGA Tour.

The problem being with another entity rather than the players owning the Tour, they would have the leverage over us and if they decided to exit, we would have an even weaker commercial model.

Comments I get on social media that the DP World Tour has been ‘sold out’ are simply untrue, unfair and factually incorrect. As a members organisation, not even one per cent of the European Tour can be sold without the authority of 75 per cent of the 400 or so members who would be entitled to a vote.

Keith Pelley and the board do not have the authority to sell the European Tour and they didn’t sell it because it is a player-owned Tour. Instead, we sold 40 per cent of European Tour Productions after getting it independently valued and it gave us that guarantee with the PGA Tour.

By doing that, we guaranteed our record prize funds for when we play for 13 years, no matter what happens. They have given a lot of money and they are not going to walk away from that, so they have a vested interest in the DP World Tour being successful commercially.

People must realise that this is not a new ownership model of our media company, European Tour Productions. Previously, under our former chief executives – Ken Schofield and George O’Grady and their boards – an independent commercial company, IMG, owned 50 per cent.

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Rory McIlroy has played down the ongoing feud between golf’s competing tours and thinks it is great that the best players in the world will all compete at The Masters.

One of the first things Keith Pelley did when he became chief executive was oversee the buying back of that 50 per cent and has since driven the increased commercial value of ETP. The board decided that reselling that percentage of ETP, at the new increased value, was the best way to engineer a commercial deal with the PGA Tour.

It is now in the PGA Tour’s interest, aside from everything else, to have a thriving DP World Tour. In time, we may well become somewhat of an international arm of the PGA Tour, with the top players in the world continuing to come over. They won’t play 20 tournaments a year, but if they are continuing to play four to seven tournaments a year, which they have done for the past decade or so, then isn’t that great? Every single top player has intimated that they will.

What could this mean for the world rankings?

The world rankings have got a major problem, with Peter Dawson and his team having a lot to consider if they want to remain as a premier metric for getting into major championships. The changes to the world rankings were decided pre-LIV, although it’s often the DP World Tour that get blamed for letting this happen.

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DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley said in November that four independent research studies suggested the world rankings don’t reflect player performance on the different tours

The mental mindset of a team is very different. An example of this was Sebastian Munoz last week, having a putt from about 30 feet to tie the leader Brooks Koepka on the 18th hole. He was quoted afterwards as saying he was more concerned about two-putting to win the team title as opposed to a putt to tie the individual tournament.

This is not apples with apples and the world rankings should be based on environments where apples are compared with apples. However, I do believe that the best players in the world should be playing major championships and possibly another metric needs to be considered, which involves LIV players only being exempt from this category.

Going forward, and this is not our decision, the metrics to get into these major championships may well move away from world rankings. The changes they have made have not gone down well among the players and have caused a lot of unrest.