Tour pro: 'Unexpected' PGA Tour announcement caught DPWT bosses by surprise

England's Eddie Pepperell believes the DP World Tour's strategic alliance with the PGA Tour needs scrutinising after the 2024 changes were announced.

Ben Smith

29 Mar 2023

Tour pro: 'Unexpected' PGA Tour announcement caught DPWT bosses by surprise

England's Eddie Pepperell claims the recent changes to the 2024 PGA Tour schedule have taken bosses at the DP World Tour by surprise.

Those changes are in relation to the tour's designated events in 2024.

From next year there will be as many as eight 'no-cut' tournaments with fields reduced to 70-78 players with bumper prize purses to rival LIV Golf.

Huge questions were raised about the proposals, even by some PGA Tour members.

Rory McIlroy and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, unsurprisingly, were among those to fiercely defend the direction the tour is heading.

One aspect under increasing scrutiny is the DP World Tour's 'strategic alliance' with the PGA.

At the end of this season, the top 10 players on the former world circuit will be given PGA Tour cards.

Then throw into the mix the changes to the PGA schedule and it means the games top European names will be reduced to fewer Rolex Series events.

What does that mean for the alliance? Where is it?

Pepperell told the Sky Sports Golf Podcast:

"I think the strategic alliance [between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour], is under...not threat, but it's certainly, it would make sense to certainly put it [under] more of a microscope and say, where is the alliance here?

"And I actually know that these latest round of changes have taken, you know, people high up on our tour aback. And that wasn't expected.

"But remember, these latest round of changes on the PGA Tour were player driven. This wasn't driven by [PGA Tour commissioner] Jay Monahan and his team.

"This was driven by 25 top players on the PGA Tour. Now, Jay Monahan doesn't really have much of a choice but to really go along with them.

"By and large, if he wants to keep a few of the big players on his tour, so you can understand why they can implement it.

"But make no bones about it, it certainly raises the alarm bells I think, for us as a tour to say where is the strategic alliance? How's it going to work?

"Because to me, now there's another lay that's been put in."

Watch here:

Eddie Pepperell gives his opinion on the strategic alliance on the DP World Tour and the future it may bring
— Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) March 29, 2023

Pepperell's comments come as a four-page memo was released to the PGA Tour membership about how to qualify for the designated events and the FedEx Cup points on offer.

See here:

Not everyone agrees that the strategic alliance is under threat.

Former Ryder Cup Europe captain Paul McGinley defended the partnership, claiming it was a 'natural progression of what we have been doing over the last few years'.

McGinley was speaking last November when he made those comments. He has since not renewed his membership on the DP World Tour's board.

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