The DP World Tour is So Important to The Future of Golf

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

If you follow the world of professional golf - and if you are reading this then I guess you do - you will know that TV viewing figures and attendances at tournaments on the PGA Tour have fallen off a cliff in 2024. 

You don’t have to be a genius to work out why. I can prove it to you - I know why. And I am definitely not a genius! 

Golf fans have been turned off by their sport’s current obsession with money. Everything, it seems, is designed to put even more money into the players’ pockets, especially of those who already earn the most. It means they are increasingly out of touch with reality - and with the fans.

And if you think the viewing figures for the PGA Tour are worrying (and they definitely are) it is as nothing when compared with the tiny audiences who have sat in front of devices to watch the circus that is LIV Golf.

I believe that talk of a framework deal between both tours has served only as a further turn-off for those who love this sport. Saudi investment in the PGA Tour will only mean leading golfers becoming even richer. Golf has become a sport that seems to have become obsessed with money at a time when the leading lights are already earning squillions of dollars. Almost every story you read about the sport now centres around money and sponsorship.

And in all the talk about mergers, peace deals and framework agreements there has been little or no mention of the DP World Tour, which is seen in America as the poor relation in all of this. Some would even describe it as a feeder tour. You could be forgiven for thinking that golf doesn’t exist outside of the USA.

Oh yeah? Well check this one out for size…

The PGA Tour would do well to consider the contribution made by players such as Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, Viktor Hovland, Robert MacIntyre, Tommy Fleetwood, Matthieu Pavon, Aaron Rai, Shane Lowry and Matthew Fitzpatrick. I could go on. The fact is that without these players, the PGA Tour would be a pretty bland affair. Or, rather, a more bland affair than it already is.

And I guarantee that several of the 10 golfers who won tour cards for 2025 will only add stardust to their "product" in the months that lie ahead.

But here is the big thing. While people are turning off in their droves on the other side of the Atlantic, exactly the opposite has been happening on the DP World Tour. TV audiences have increased by 15% and attendance figures at tournaments have rocketed. 

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

There were vast crowds at tournaments such as the Scottish Open and Irish Open (no real surprise there), British Masters and BMW PGA Championship. But more encouraging than that is the fact that tens of thousands also flocked to the Spanish Open, French Open, Abu Dhabi Championship and DP World Tour Championship.

It should surprise nobody that tournaments staged in Britain and Ireland attracted big galleries - they always do. But Guy Kinnings and his colleagues at Wentworth will be thrilled by what they have witnessed at the other venues.

There will be plenty of reasons for this upsurge in interest but there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that part of it is down to the fact that the guys who compete in these events remain in touch with the fans who come out to watch them play. It helps that they are not competing for mega-bucks. They interact with fans, they do not perform like robots.

I am concerned that any framework deal will leave the DP World Tour out in the cold - and that is plainly wrong. 

Year after year, European golfers who learnt their trade on their home tour compete for the sport’s biggest prizes. 

In 2024 we saw the emergence as a world-class talent of Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre. The PGA Tour will point to the fact that it wouldn’t have happened had he not been given a card at the end of 2023. The truth is that it is North American fans who have benefitted from being able to watch MacIntyre. And his success at both the Canadian Open and Scottish Open means that more European fans are actually likely to take an interest when he is competing on American soil.

While we are on the subject, is there a bigger draw in the sport than McIlroy? Now that Tiger Woods’ career seems to be finally drawing to a close, there is nobody who gets the juices flowing in the way that the Northern Irishman does. Without argument, Scottie Scheffler is currently the best player on the planet but he cannot hold a candle to McIlroy when it comes to excitement, charisma and sheer natural talent. Fans root for him in a way that they never will for Scheffler or Xander Schauffele.  

It is imperative that when any deal is done that the DP World Tour is given a proper place at the table - and that means more co-sanctioned events for starters. 

The time for doing what they are told by the Americans and accepting scraps from their table is over. We have a product, players and venues to be proud of. And remember that without the DP World Tour the Ryder Cup would not be the event that it is today, namely one of the biggest sporting events on the planet, with European golfers at its very heart.

Related Content

DP World Tour Releases Full Schedule For 2025