Keith Pelley Q&A Part 2: On a global tour, the PGA moving to May, and the future of golf
Keith Pelley discussed his attempt to modernize golf in Part One of theScore's Q&A with the European Tour CEO. In Part Two, Pelley talks about the idea of a global tour, the impact of the PGA Championship moving to May, the tour's creative social media account, and the future of golf.
deCourcy: Rory McIlroy recently said the PGA Tour should buy the European Tour, making it a global circuit ... what are your thoughts on that concept?
Pelley: We always respect our members' opinions even though they might differ from our own and conversations such as this are thrown around in the media every now and then. I have said before that, playing in 30 countries, as the European Tour will be doing during the 2018 season, I already view us as a global circuit.
deCourcy: Aside from the WGC's in the USA, would you ever create another Euro event in the United States or Canada?
Pelley: We never say never, but we have a number of other important projects on-going at the moment in terms of the European Tour strategy and direction which means we couldn't devote or dedicate the proper resource and time to any project of that magnitude. It's not on our radar.
deCourcy: The European Tour's social media is certainly interesting, with players partaking in numerous fun contests etc. Do you feel the European players have more fun than the PGA Tour players? And if so, why?
Pelley: I have worked with professional athletes for most of my life but I can say without fear of contradiction that professional golfers are special. We have a Players' First Philosophy at the European Tour and they are, without question, our stars. They have tremendous personalities and everything we have done from a digital perspective has been designed to show those personalities to our fans. We’re very proud of some of the content that we’ve produced and the players have loved being part of it. They have never been slow to commit their time and are all for it, because they know that we're creating entertaining content which will give them, and their sponsors, an additional platform.
deCourcy: How has the U.S. PGA Championship's move to May influenced your product?
The changes that have transpired with the 2019 schedule in the US have given us a chance to look at our schedule completely differently to what we have ever done before. We are well into strategic discussions with our Tournament Committee and our other stakeholders, as well as our internal golf experts. It is a work in progress at the moment, but I think it presents a real opportunity for us as a Tour.
deCourcy: Where do you see golf in the next ten years?
Pelley: If we look at the way the game has progressed even in the past couple of years in terms of the way in which our fans now consume our sport and the commercial landscape we find ourselves in, there is no doubt that we are headed towards even bigger changes over the next decade. I think it will be different in terms of different formats appearing on a regular basis and also innovations such as music on the range and the first tee and players being miked up etc - all things we are championing on the European Tour - will be commonplace.
The migration from linear to digital is now commonplace and I would like to see all of our product on all of the time on some platform, enabling everyone to be able to watch every minute of the European Tour on some device on some platform at any time.
(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)