Thursday
Dec172015
Awkward Photo Op Fun: Keith Pelley Mows Fairways Edition
Nothing screams natural more than a Commissioner refusing to shed his navy blazer to drive around on a Toro mower. That's what European Tour Chief Keith Pelley did during the recent Dubai event.
Take this, George O'Grady!
Keith Pelley, Chief Executive of the European Tour, said “Having our golf courses prepared and presented to the highest standard is an essential part of providing the best possible playing experience for our members, which is one of our key priorities. Toro’s products and equipment play a vital role in us achieving this, so we are delighted to extend our long-standing relationship with them to help ensure these high standards continue to be met.”
Thursday, December 17, 2015 at 09:24 PM
Reader Comments (22)
The Xmas spirit is alive in Dubai!
First, Mike Kerr the Canadian CEO of Asian Tour was immediately bounced from his position after publicly proclaiming that the deal was going to be approved. Now Ken Schofield and other non-Asians have all been removed from the Asian Tour board of directors - making Pelley's confident predictions of huge schedule changes on ET in 2017 and 2018 appear questionable.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/asian-tour-board-shake-amid-europe-merger-talks-075730311--golf.html
Think Pelley might be feeling a bit stressed?
Perhaps Asian golfers are not enamored with the concept of being absorbed into ET's proposed 21st century equivalent of the British Empire given how long it took them to break free of that empire the last time?
Why is this? Will they in fact lose "playing opportunities" to European players?
"They shouldn't be"
Why not? Can you guarantee the Asian Tour players won't be marginalized in terms of quality starts?
"At the top level there should be 2 or 3 bigger events- a win/win for both sides."
What is this, like a magic trick? Who is going to pay for these "bigger events" at the "top level"....?!?!!???!?!?!?/!????
"The main benefit however is to the Asian development players and the European challenge tour players. At present the European Challenge tour has very few events from November to May. The Asian Tour offers a great opportunity to expand that with increased sponsorship. It should work for both sides."
Huh??? That whole passage sounds like complete gibberish.....makes NO SENSE AT ALL!! GIBBERISH!!!
Q: Your predecessors wanted... as many tournaments as possible... how about you?
A: ....it's important that all our purses rise. Playing opportunities are very important for medium and lower ranked members as well. That is why we entered into discussion with the Asian Tour. We will increase and build more tournaments in Asia, not necessarily the highest-end tournaments but some of the million dollar tournaments for some of our lower-ranked players and for Asian Tour members. There is potential to move up to 65 events a year. The Asian Tour players will get an opportunity to play (in Europe) as well.
Calendar year 2015 contained 8 world events sanctioned by ET, plus 41 other ranked events - 49 total ET ranked events. Pelley's mention of "potential to move up to 65 events" seems to refer to potentially boosting ET's 49 event total schedule in calendar 2015 toward 65 by creating a lot of two events per week scheduling? He can surely put eight additional tournaments opposite the 8 world events. But, if he has 49 playable weeks per year, he needs to double up in 16 of the weeks (not just 8) to reach a total of 65 events. If the 16 are mostly Asian-based "million dollar tournaments for some of our lower-ranked players and for Asian Tour members" he is in essence proposing a dual track schedule on EUROPEAN TOUR - one with higher purse events frequented by ET's higher ranked players with lower ranked ET members playing a greatly increased number of million dollar purse cosanctions.
Chico, I originally thought the plan would be similar to what you mention above with the 13 or so Asian Tour events that were contested calendar 2015 divided between future European Tour and future Challenge Tour status and the Asian Tour membership similarly divided between the two tours creating what would become a EurAsian Tour and a EurAsian Challenge Tour. The two tours would have both mixed memberships and mixed schedules allowing Challenge Tour to fill the November May hole to which you refer. But, I see no sign of that plan in Pelley's answer above. Instead, he seems to want to preserve all three tours and allow both Asian Tour and Challenge Tour to feed some of their best onto European Tour - while dramatically boosting the number of ET events staged per year.
I am also not sure about your assertion that "only the lesser players on AT" are concerned. If that was the case, would AT be undergoing the massive all asian restructure of its CEO and Board that has quickly taken place? I've read several player quotes along these lines... Europe is stagnant with respect to sponsorship growth. Why should we allow the Europeans to control Asia with its growing economies that will generate the lions share of future growth in purse sizes? Perhaps the majority of the Asian Tour membership simply wants to control their own destiny rather than ceding control to European management?
Chico, If you "know the deal" where am I off base if you think it is different from my take based on Pelley's single response above. And, how does it - if it does - eliminate Asian member fears of losing control of their own destiny? Perhaps it is not the immediate gains (there will likely be some IMO) but long term control that apparently doesn't sit well with the AT membership?
In late July 2015, OWGR suddenly recognized four European development tours - Alps, Europro, Nordic Golf League and ProGolf Tour - and began awarding them ranking points. In the announcement ET allowed the top 5 money winners on all four tours access to Challenge Tour for the following season. This instant creation of four new feeder tours for Challenge Tour seemed to fit right into the mold that PGA Tour had created for Web.com with PTLA, PT CANADA and PT CHINA all providing top money winners access to WC.
OK, I thought, ET is expanding its feeder tour system and the Asian Tour merger announcement likely means that the four new European Feeder tours to Challenge will be joined by ADT which is currently the feeder tour for Asian Tour while AT and Challenge essentially merge into a new EurAsian Challenge Tour.
Your comments above about ET perhaps expanding Challenge Tour into Asia and ET developing more cosanctions with Challenge seems to point in that same direction.
However, there are TWO BIG PROBLEMS with that "plan". First, the 2016 European Tour schedule is the first in many years that does not include a single ET/Challenge Tour cosanction. Why - if the plan is to increase the numbers of ET/CH cosanctions - has 2016 dropped them altogether? Second, why was Pelley talking about many potential new cosanctions with Asian Tour without mentioning Challenge Tour at all?
Another issue is purse size. While Pelley is talking about creating a bunch of new million dollar ET/AT cosanctions, the typical purse size on Challenge Tour is about $250K. If the merger goes thru and AT becomes a second ET feeder system - distinct from Challenge - why would young players want to proceed thru the Challenge Tour feeder system when they could play for far larger purses on the Asian Tour feeder system and also have multiple chances for instant promotion to ET membership if they happen to win any of the proposed new cosanctions?
I agree that it is not all about the top players and the rank and file need more places to play. IMO, a single EurAsian Tour fed by a single EurAsian Challenge Tour, which is in turn fed by multiple 4 to 6 ranking points to the winner developmental tours makes sense. It is probably where they need to go if the Europeans and Asians can agree on a management structure that protects all interests.
However, I see no evidence that is where they are headed. Instead, it appears that Pelley wants to turn European Tour into a dual track host for multiple events per week with vastly differing field strengths between the events that are solo sanctioned by ET and cosanctioned with AT. And, I see no sign of a proposed merger of AT and Challenge memberships. Both memberships appear likely to continue to exist separately after the merger - if it goes thru - with both feeding their top players into ET membership for the following season.
Separate “but equal” Asian and Challenge feeder systems into ET membership (with the Asian version having much larger purses and lots of new ET cosanctions and the Challenge version having smaller purses and perhaps losing the cosanctions it used to have) would make it unlikely IMO for Challenge Tour to remain viable over the longer term. If both memberships remain separate, Challenge seems likely to feed top players into the Asian Tour membership at some point in the future rather feeding directly into ET.
But Chico, he even used CAPITAL letters to show how strong he feels. LOL
But Chico, he even used CAPITAL letters to show how strong he feels. LOL""
WHAT FUN WOULD THAT BE?!?
;0)
Mike Kerr, the Asian Tour's equivalent of Pelley or Finchem was let go and had been gone over a month when Pelley spoke about the issue at the Dubai Finale and Pelley made no mention of Kerr's departure. Ken Schofield, a longtime director of the Asian Tour, is also out. No coverage of this on Golf Channel or anywhere else of note that I can see.