‘We really are the global tour’: Inside the DP World Tour’s fascinating limbo

This weekend’s biggest golf event is being played on the DP World Tour. Next weekend’s biggest golf event will be, too, when the circuit formerly known as the European Tour finishes out its season at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

Why is this significant? Because that’s not often true. Because the end of the season is as good a time as any to take stock of a sports league. And because the DP World Tour occupies a particularly fascinating position in golf’s global geopolitics. Rory McIlroy said early this week that the tour “might have a couple of different options going forward,” which suggests that it’s not currently where it wants to be — but it might soon head in that direction. So where is the DPWT now, anyway?

‘We really are the global tour’

It’s tough to quickly summarize just how many things are fascinating and aspirational about the DP World Tour, which showcases golf in all corners of the globe. This year, for instance, the circuit spread its 44 tournaments across five continents and 24 countries.

There’s some reason for optimism, too. The DPWT overhauled its schedule before this season to make it more coherent for both players and fans; they began 2024 in the Middle East and Africa, headed to Asia in April and May and then returned to continental Europe for its traditional summer season, which features nonstop national opens and centers nicely around the Scottish Open and Open Championship.

Then things really got good beginning in September; when the “Back 9” slate of events welcomed an influx of PGA Tour pros who’d finished their seasons, included an Irish Open at arguably the No. 1 course in the world, went from there to the annual star-studded trip to Wentworth and then jumped to national opens in Spain and France as well as hosting a star-studded field at the St. Andrews-based Dunhill Links. Those events saw in-person attendance climb and boasted a 13 percent viewership increase on Sky Sports, bucking trends from elsewhere in the sport. If the DP World Tour was only golf tour in the world, top pros would be begging to play it.

But it’s notably not. And while this fall has given us glimpses of the DPWT’s full potential — U.S. fans, for instance, got to wake up to watch McIlroy battle at breathtaking Royal County Down for the Irish Open title, a tournament that wrapped before their favorite NFL team even kicked off — this week’s penultimate event reveals a tour in a bit of an identity crisis.

Let’s start with what the DP World Tour says it is. Here’s CEO Guy Kinnings in a terrific interview with the Scotsman’s Martin Dempster earlier this week:

“…we really are the global tour,” he said. “That’s what we have done for 50 years. We’ve played in every corner of the world and developed relationships, worked with different cultures and the tour has evolved so we play in and become the root for all the best international talent.

The “global tour” remark reads as a shot at LIV, which has boasted of expanding the game’s reach but, in 2024, played seven of its 14 events in the United States. The PGA Tour has also boasted of its global reach but plays the large majority of its events stateside, too; their alliance means the DP World Tour serves in some ways as the PGA Tour’s international arm. Others have called it the PGA Tour’s “feeder tour,” but Kinnings rejects that characterization.

“Whenever people say ‘you are a feeder tour’, I reply ‘no, we are not’,” he told the Scotsman. “Have a look at what this tour is with unbelievable national opens with so much history. If part of it is to feed talent through, then absolutely because it allows the best talent in the world to come through in the game and that will always be a result.”

I’d agree that, although it now very literally feeds its best players to the PGA Tour, the DPWT is not only a feeder tour. It’s different things to different people at different times. They’re using the tour for their own benefit; the tour just has to ensure that it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Back to this week’s field, then: Take a peek and you’ll see what I mean.

The Graduates

The “feeder tour” discourse bubbled to the surface when, two years ago, the DPWT and PGA Tours announced that the top 10 finishers in the Race to Dubai who didn’t already have PGA Tour cards would earn ’em for the following season. That was great news for the players, who suddenly had a direct path to the top tour in the world. It was just slightly less obvious what was in it for their home tour. Last year that meant players like Bob MacIntyre and Matthieu Pavon played more in the U.S. on the PGA Tour and less on the DPWT around the world. Next year that’ll be the case for a whole new set of rising stars including Rasmus Hojgaard and Matteo Manassero.

Niklas Norgaard, a Danish pro currently No. 7 in the Race to Dubai, stated his priorities clearly: “My main goal for these [final two tournaments] is to lock up that top 10,” he said. And 36-hole tournament leader Paul Waring admitted that he, too, was dreaming of graduation. “There are bigger things in my career that I do want to go and do,” he said, referring to the majors and PGA Tour.

These pros all speak highly of the DPWT, and graduates often express just how much they miss it once they’ve left. But that’s part of its identity now: as a stepping-stone to something bigger. And so the majority of DPWT members playing this week is considering what might happen if they earned one of those 10 golden tickets.

The Stars

Unlike during the bulk of the DPWT season, there are top pros from Europe and beyond in Abu Dhabi this week. Rory McIlroy is the headliner, of course, and his Ryder Cup teammates Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose and Bob MacIntyre are there, too, as are Adam Scott, Min Woo Lee and more. More stars still might be here as well were they in better health; Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg are among those taking time off as they recover from injury.

Some of those that did make the trip did so because they believe in their home tour and want to support it. But there are other reasons, too. The DPWT has ensured that they can play the circuit on their terms, and so they get to parachute in at the conclusion of their PGA Tour-centric schedules, returning to play for the DPWT’s biggest prizes and biggest points and shoring up their Ryder Cup eligibility in the process. This is no critique of those players — just a recognition of golf’s hierarchy and its downstream effects. Consider that from January to June, zero top-20 players and just two top-50 players made starts on the DP World Tour. A few more made spot starts around links season but mostly they skip spring and summer and stop back in for fall, a season the PGA Tour has all but ceded to the NFL anyway.

McIlroy has plenty to gain from this finishing stretch: he’s eager to shore up his sixth Race to Dubai title, which he’s almost certain to do this week or next. But he’s largely in that position because of his play in the majors, which count towards the total. McIlroy played two DP World events back in January but didn’t play another (other than the majors and the co-sanctioned Genesis Scottish Open) until September. He’s able to add to his legacy on this tour without being a week-in, week-out member. He recognizes that’s an imperfect balance for the league.

“I think hopefully we’ll get more than just the patch at the end of the year,” McIlroy said earlier this week, asked about the state of the tour. “There have to be some tournaments dispersed throughout the year for the Tour to stay relevant, not just in a four-month window but a little bit more than that.

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“Yeah, look, we’ll see what happens. I think I’ve articulated that I think The European Tour is in a good spot because it might have a couple of different options going forward.”

If that last bit is somewhat cryptic and open-ended, well, so is the future of the professional game. But if McIlroy were in charge, he’s made it clear that his dream vision for golf’s future centers on an international schedule of events with meaning and history — a vision that overlaps with that of his home circuit. In the meantime, though, the appearances of its brand-name pros are few and fleeting.

The LIV pros

Although their status is rather murky long-term, thanks to appeal limbo several LIV pros have access to DPWT events this season and so Tyrrell Hatton, Joaquin Niemann and Adrian Meronk are representing the breakaway league in Abu Dhabi this week. (Jon Rahm may have been here, too, were it not for the recent birth of his third child.) LIV pros can’t play the PGA Tour but can play here for now, which means these events are valuable opportunities to collect world ranking points, retain Ryder Cup eligibility and mingle with their former co-workers on a more established tour.

While some pros resigned their memberships and suffered the consequences of their departures, this particular crop of pros seem to be enjoying their cake and having it, too.

“I don’t know, feels like a bit of a yo-yo, doesn’t it,” Hatton said of a potential long-term truce between warring parties. “It feels like it’s getting closer, and then it doesn’t sound like it’s close. I’ll play golf kind of where I want to play and we’ll go from there.”

The Giving Tour

So the graduates, the stars and the LIV pros all seem to be taking, a la carte, from the old-world tour. They’re giving, too — those TV ratings wouldn’t have jumped without big names to help boost ’em — but the relationship exists on the players’ terms, and it’s not clear the relationship is mutually beneficial nor sustainable in the long term.

Kinnings is right that it’s far more than just a feeder tour; these pros would never swoop in to play a Korn Ferry Tour event, for instance. The DPWT has plenty of assets, too — epic locations, generations of history and global appeal.

Kinnings has also expressed optimism at the ongoing talks between the DPWT, PGA Tour and Saudi PIF. And although his can be the forgotten of the three tours, it represents a crucial piece of the global golf puzzle.

Anyway, enjoy the golf this weekend and next, too. Consider who might leap to the PGA Tour for the 2025 season, or which LIV pros could be angling for a Ryder Cup spot. And enjoy the tournament itself, too, as the culmination of a cool if imperfect tour season. The DP World Tour’s in limbo. That means, at some point soon, it’ll probably get out.