Is the DP World Tour the answer to the 2023 golf viewing conundrum?
The hunt for a pro tour worth watching in LIV times: Part 1
With the Open Championship now a distant memory, it’s a long time since I actively tuned in to a live golf broadcast. This isn’t normal for me, but given the state of the sport right now, I find myself simply waiting for a clear winner in the race for my attention.
In light of the PGA Tour’s plans for ‘elevated events’, my thoughts have often flicked ahead to the first week of January. This is just a couple of months away! We’re waiting for a lot more details from Ponte Vedra Beach – I want to see the final list of players required to be at these events, and know the plan for how that list evolves given the vagaries of form – but I’m open to being excited about the events in Hawaii in a way I haven’t previously managed.
(Staying awake, for someone based in Europe, is another matter entirely – particularly if it’s just a race to 40-under par in Kapalua. But let’s get to that in Part 2 of this series, which you can receive free by punching in your email below.)
Meantime, there was schedule news from the DP World Tour last week. It’s a tour about which, like LIV Golf, I am also open to getting excited. Maybe it’s because it’s a while since I’ve been around press centres in person, and can’t claim to be invested in a bunch of relationships, but I come at golf’s current war with no prejudices. I’ve been writing about the potential positive impact LIV could have since February – see ‘elevated events’ above for the vindication – and I even flew to London to cover the inaugural LIV event.
That said, there ain’t no weekend in hell I’m gonna watch the final rounds from three tours – or even two. I have a life, you know? And I suspect that’s the case for all but the geekiest of golf nerds. Not even for a full-time journalist are there enough waking hours in the weekend to cover them all in any depth. Which is why I’ve been writing all year (here, for example) that everyone will lose if a clear winner in the battle for golf doesn’t emerge pronto.
Photo source: DP World Tour website
So, could the DP World Tour be that winner? Seems unlikely, sure…but let’s give it a chance. After all, as a South African, I grew up watching the European Tour because that’s where a lot of our players competed, the time zones were sensible, they had events in our country and the schedule was a ton more exotic and varied than the PGA Tour’s was. I’ve only ever wished the best for that tour. So, let’s unwrap last week’s release.
There’s going to be more money…bigger bonus pool…surprise, surprise. More cash is being summoned up everywhere. But, as in PGA Land, the ‘record’ regular season fund ($144.2 million, if you’re interested) only matters to would-be viewers insofar as it can translate to field strength and tour loyalty.
Ah, but wait! There’s more! What’s this about assured earnings?
If my (admittedly dismal) Excel skills are to be trusted, and the eligible players currently listed per category on the DP World Tour website are anything to go by, there are over 200 players who would currently qualify for that.
So, as across the pond, anybody who’s anybody is now suddenly guaranteed to earn a decent living wage for the season – at the very least. Subtract tax and travel costs for a tour that truly does trot the globe, and that minimum will hardly be eye-popping money come year’s end. But it’s still interesting. The concept of a retainer has been heavily booed by the likes of Tiger Woods in the context of the LIV war…but here’s another ‘establishment’ tour opting for exactly that.
(Tiger’s argument never really grabbed me, just by the way. Most other sports give their star players guaranteed wages in some form or other. I get Woods’ feelings on why it’s good to ‘dig dirt’ on the range and let players fight it out in a meritocracy, but I’m not sure one of history’s most successful golfers is actually qualified to give a balanced perspective on that!)
Next up, notably early in the release, is mention of the partnership with the PGA Tour. Sorry, the ‘operational joint venture’ partnership. The one that was originally just ‘strategic’. Is this going somewhere that will reduce the number of tours and the agony of choice? More quality and less quantity? A fusion of global schedule and the best players? I hope so! Let’s read on.
Uh-oh.
Forget Hawaii in January. ‘2023’ starts later this month! The beloved wraparound doesn’t seem to be going anywhere this side of the Atlantic. Right, so that gives me about three weeks to choose whether the DP World Tour is ‘the One’ that will make me pick up my remote again for five hours of golf viewing on Sundays.
Wait, no…make that ten hours.
Yep, you read that right.
I’ve re-read the release several times, just to make sure.
But no. It’s not a typo. The season kicks off with two parallel tournaments on two different continents.
And then it happens again the following week!
Well, I think that’s me out already.
If you were trying to come up with a way of screaming ‘neither of these tournaments is going to have much of a field, so you may as well not bother following either,’ without actually saying it, this would surely be it.
This does not appear to be the answer to my ‘quality, not quantity requirement’.
I know these are co-sanctioned events, and saying that the DP World Tour is splitting what limited quality it has available to it would be an over-simplification. I also know that a double-header is the exception, not the rule. And I’m aware that we’ve seen such things on the PGA Tour — but this is not the Arnold Palmer versus Puerto Rico. Neither the Joburg Open nor the Australian PGA clearly stands out as the One To Watch.
Surely, for the love of all that’s holy — and especially if you’re battling to push your tour’s profile — you want your new season to start with a bang that will hook and engage a following for what is to come? Rather than yelling ‘meh, let’s just ease into it with two watered-down tournaments, confuse everyone and make them switch off altogether’?
Perhaps – freakish notion here – an actual off-season would also go some way towards building some anticipation following the previous one. If the PGA Tour has accepted that ‘fall’ events were never a great idea – this year’s are the last we’ll see, by all accounts – then surely that applies to the DP World Tour too? News flash: it’s still summer in South Africa and Australia in January.
Anyway. Like I said, the message conveyed by that very first weekend told me all I needed to know about where strong, recognisable fields and something passing for a Formula 1 style narrative thread lie on the priority list at Wentworth. The rest of the release, if you’re interested, contains nothing earth-shattering: 37 further events, a few date changes, a three-week summer break. Still, if you’d like to examine the rest of the schedule, take a look here.
I cannot speak for those doing commercial deals, signing contracts and cashing cheques. I cannot speak for the players, or those who have to attend to their wishes. (I very much hope to get back to that in the future, by the way, but can only justify the time and travel when the Posh Sports Precinct starts paying its share of the rent – so please help me out by sharing this article!) Maybe the DP World Tour is only interested in the welfare of those inside the ropes, the needs of those who live in its hospitality tents and the health of its co-sanctioning relationships. If this is what makes sense from that perspective, fine and well.
But for what it’s worth, I can speak for my own choices as a long-standing follower of this sport. As one actively looking for a reason to tune in to (and write about) something beyond just the four Majors.
The latest DP World Tour news, I’m sorry to say, fails to offer me one.
PS. There was nothing concrete regarding the ‘operational joint venture’ further down the release either. Still awaiting something more than meaningless back-scratching…
PPS. For a Substack writer who specialises in Majors and does a superb job of it, look no further than Geoff Shackelford.
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