{"id":630145,"date":"2026-05-08T03:08:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T03:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630145\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T03:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T03:08:24","slug":"dp-world-tour-chief-responds-to-fears-of-liv-golf-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/630145\/","title":{"rendered":"DP World Tour chief responds to fears of LIV Golf collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The perilous future of LIV<\/a> has dominated discussion since it emerged last month that Saudi Arabia\u2019s trillion dollar Public Investment Fund would be pulling its funding from the breakaway league. Yet during this fraught period, ongoing talks among those at Wentworth and the PGA Tour appear just as important as the men\u2019s professional game reaches another critical juncture.<\/p>\n

The DP World, formerly European, Tour, and the PGA Tour are currently renegotiating their strategic alliance, which runs until 2035 but has a break clause for 2027. They first signed up to be partners in November 2020 and extended their deal not longer after LIV\u2019s launch in 2022. Under the agreement, the PGA Tour annually underpins DP World Tour\u2019s prize funds. The fee was listed as \u00a321.5 million as an \u201cannual investment payment\u201d in the European Tour Group\u2019s accounts back in 2024. The US-based circuit also invested an initial $85 million to obtain 15 percent of its media arm, European Tour Productions, a stake that will increase to 40 percent by the end of 2027.<\/p>\n

But since the deal was first struck with then DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley, the PGA Tour has changed direction entirely. The organization is now under the scrutiny of private equity after the $1.5 billion investment of the Strategic Sports Group in 2024. A total of 56 PGA Tour staff, four percent of the workforce, have lost their jobs<\/a> with the purse strings tightening across the business.<\/p>\n

New CEO Brian Rolapp, meanwhile, is working on a streamlined schedule<\/a> for 2027. It has not been entirely clear where a European collaboration fits into this new for-profit approach, particularly with LIV now seen as a diminishing threat. Kinnings, however, is hugely encouraged by his talks with the new PGA Tour leadership, which are understood to have been positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrian made it very clear in his speech at The Players,\u201d Kinnings says.\u00a0\u201cHe said we want to work together in the future.\u201d Kinnings and Eric Nicoli, the DP World Tour\u2019s chairman, were both present at TPC Sawgrass in March for Rolapp\u2019s polished address, where he declared he wants to \u2018create an even more mutually beneficial relationship\u2019 than the current alliance with Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in discussions already about what the future could look like,\u201d Kinnings explains.\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s a recognition,\u00a0and I have confidence in Brian and the team who work there,\u00a0to make the very best for the PGA Tour and the FedEx Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRecognizing they will make the most of it during that February to August period\u00a0gives us a huge opportunity to focus on international golf between September and January and\u00a0do it properly, do it the way we\u2019re doing it now,\u00a0working with them, with those international players,\u00a0hopefully with some of the American players as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat ability to have strength in the US at the right time of year,\u00a0strength internationally at the right time of the year for us.\u00a0I think the stars are aligning at the moment for that to work out in the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the current strategic alliance, 10 DP World Tour players progress to the PGA Tour<\/a> each season via the Race to Dubai Rankings. Some argue that is an unnecessary talent drain, but Kinnings paints a very different picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to give opportunity to players,\u201d he stresses.\u00a0\u201cGenuine opportunity.\u00a0Meritocracy. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe allow pathways from around the world. The job of a pro is tough.\u00a0Giving them the opportunity to go and play\u00a0on the biggest stage \u2013 the PGA Tour and the FedEx Cup \u2013 is fine, but with the players coming back, our dual members are unbelievable. The minimum is four and Rory McIlroy played double that last year.\u00a0He\u2019s going to play more this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur statistics show that in the past,\u00a0about five or six guys a year\u00a0would find a way of going to get to the PGA Tour anyway. Instead of doing it that way,\u00a0through different routes,\u00a0they now know the way to play.\u00a0Play through this system.\u00a0If you\u2019re good enough,\u00a0go through on that level. And the guys are showing they are good enough.\u00a0At the moment, I think it works well. We should be the funnel for global talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Guy<\/p>\n

There has been concern among some European players about how an emboldened PGA Tour would choose to move on from LIV Golf\u2019s existential threat. Ian Poulter argued after this interview that the DP World Tour could suffer if the league was to fold as the Americans would no longer need to prop up his former domain\u2019s purses without the threat of another global circuit. <\/p>\n

\u201cI fear that they can\u2019t afford for us to go away,\u201d Poulter told the Telegraph<\/a> on Wednesday. \u201cBecause if we go away, it does not look very good for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernd Wiesberger shared similar concerns to his former Ryder Cup teammate in an interview with\u00a0TG. \u201cIt worries me a little bit,\u201d said the Austrian, who spent two seasons on LIV<\/a> but is now a full-time DP World Tour player again. \u201cIf LIV should go away, that it could be very quickly that maybe our subsidies from the PGA Tour, the support from the PGA Tour could go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kinnings was bullish, however, when asked how LIV\u2019s status being plunged into uncertainty could impact relations Stateside.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we work with the PGA Tour won\u2019t change,\u201d he insists. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to remember, we started talking to the PGA Tour about working together way before LIV ever existed.\u00a0It was because the two biggest tours in the world should be working together\u00a0rather than against each other.\u00a0Co-ordinating schedules, working around players,\u00a0working as many ways as you can to make sure you benefit the members of both tours. We\u2019ve always believed in that.\u00a0I don\u2019t think that\u2019s changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got some very good new management in there\u00a0who know what they want to do to benefit their tour. That is absolutely compatible with what we want to do\u00a0to elevate our tour and international golf.\u00a0Our interests are aligned,\u00a0and we\u2019ve got to work out the best relationship we can have going forward post-2027. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The consensus has long been that the elite game is unsustainable in its current form, with inordinate prize funds driven entirely by the LIV disruption. \u201cPlayers on all tours have won big over the past four years,\u201d Paul McGinley said recently, adding that \u201ctours are now left with huge overheads\u201d driven by LIV and then used as leverage against them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith LIV unlikely to re-emerge at current levels, a reset in the landscape is likely,\u201d the former Ryder Cup captain concluded.<\/p>\n

Kinnings is adamant the DP World Tour has laid the foundations to prosper in this brave new world. Despite competition from LIV in various territories, total sponsorship income for his circuit increased by 80 percent from 2019 to 2025, with more than $1 billion worth of sponsors currently under contract. A 10-year extension was signed last year with DP World.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew sponsors are coming in all the time,\u201d Kinnings says.\u00a0\u201cPeople have a choice.\u00a0They wouldn\u2019t be doing that\u00a0unless they saw value and return on investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rory<\/p>\n

While Kinnings says there have been successes his tour can\u2019t control \u2013 \u201cRory doing what Rory does, the boys in Bethpage\u201d \u2013 he points to momentum with TV audiences. Viewership for the season-ending Back Nine and Playoff events was up 35 percent on the Golf Channel and 16 percent on Sky in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a period of disruption,\u201d Kinnings says.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve lived through Covid.\u00a0When you are golf\u2019s global tour\u00a0and you go to double the number of countries,\u00a0you have double the number of nationalities of any other tour,\u00a0and that\u2019s a great thing. But when you\u2019re having to get through Covid,\u00a0and you have different medical rules every week, that\u2019s tough.\u00a0We got through that.\u00a0We got through a period of competition. We\u2019ve come out stronger on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kinnings was speaking with\u00a0TG\u00a0at the Turkish Airlines Open<\/a>, the seventh national open of the season. They are the tour\u2019s cornerstone, but TG understands that LIV have also shifted their interests in recent times from snapping up elite players with lavish signing fees to attempting to acquire these historic events.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hear all the noise and all you can do is control what you can control,\u201d Kinnings explains.\u00a0\u201cFor a long time, we\u2019ve focused on building up our tour as credible,\u00a0sustainable, strong, and built around national opens. That\u2019s not something you just come in and get like that.\u00a0It\u2019s decades of building a relationship with the federations. We\u2019ve been elevating those and we\u2019ll elevate them still further.\u00a0The fact that we have support from Augusta<\/a> and The R&A to give qualifying spots to those events,\u00a0helps enormously.\u00a0It\u2019s very much the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe play everywhere and we have done for 50 years. It\u2019s real golf with titles that matter.\u00a0Having that has put us in that really strong position. International golf is the future opportunity and we have a brilliant partnership with PGA Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DP World Tour has now entered a European Swing which coincides with the thick of major season, but Kinnings and co will also be keeping an eager eye on goings on elsewhere.<\/p>\n

As LIV\u2019s CEO Scott O\u2019Neil scrambles for alternate investment as part of a survival operation,\u00a0TG\u00a0has learned that several of the league\u2019s players have begun sounding out the DP World Tour<\/a> as part of contingency plans for 2027. The possibility of some of LIV\u2019s biggest names finding a landing ground in Europe would undoubtedly be a boon to Wentworth HQ.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will wait and see how things evolve, but we\u2019re obviously listening\u00a0and we\u2019re listening to players and agents and others who have questions about what the future may hold\u00a0and we\u2019ll handle it as we go forward,\u201d he says. \u201cBut for sure, there\u2019s opportunity for us to continue to grow the strength of the tour,\u00a0which is my only job really.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The perilous future of LIV has dominated discussion since it emerged last month that Saudi Arabia\u2019s trillion dollar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-630145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}