It’s coming up to four years since the DP World Tour and PGA Tour announced their “Strategic Alliance” built in a way to “further enhance and connect the ecosystem of men’s professional golf.”

The deal was locked in until 2035, in a way to stand up to the threat brought on by LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which now seems to be moving in another direction.

It was clear to see that some players were to benefit more than most. From the start of the 2023 DP World Tour season, the top 10 finishers on the Race to Dubai Rankings, not otherwise exempt, would earn a PGA Tour card for the following season.

This led to fears that the DP World Tour would essentially be acting as a feeder circuit and giving away its best players to the PGA Tour. A thought that still gives Matt Fitzpatrick a sour taste in his mouth, four years down the line.

“I don’t think the (DP World) Tour should have gone with the PGA Tour,” he told reporters on the eve of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews.

“I was pretty livid, to be honest, at Wentworth when I found out that there was a handful of PGA Tour players coming to play [the BMW PGA Championship], and at that point in time, not every person who kept their card last year got in the field, which I think is a disgrace. That’s the flagship event.

“There’s no invites given to European Tour players at THE PLAYERS Championship. So why are we dishing them out for Wentworth?

“I thought that was absolutely absurd that that even went through.”

Keith Pelley and Jay Monahan. Ross Kinnaird

The agreement Fitzpatrick is mentioning was completed when the former DP World Tour Chief Executive Officer, Keith Pelley, was in office. A deal was struck alongside the Commissioner of the PGA Tour Jay Monahan to elevate tournaments and create more playing opportunities for both sides.

Pelley has since departed the DP World Tour, to lead powerhouse Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment as their President & Chief Executive Officer back in his home country of Canada.

The move by Pelley came at a critical time in golf. The DP World Tour was part of the then June 6 agreement with the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s PIF to form a commercial company that could reshape how golf is run and how a global golf tour might look in the future.

“You have basically like a Premier League, Championship and League One of golf,” the 2022 U.S. Open  Champion went on to say. “You can bring everyone together and there’s more of a relegation promotion, there’s a few more stories there, you can work your way up. If everyone was together, I feel like that would be more beneficial, anyway.

“I can’t sit here and say that I know the viewing figures for LIV or PGA TOUR are going up or down. I just don’t know. But as a big football fan, there’s got to be more stories in the relegation-promotion rather than what I think there is now.

“Obviously I know LIV is a closed shop and they have a team aspect. As a football fan, I love team stuff. The Ryder Cup is amazing. All that stuff is great.

“So, I’m not fully against the team aspect but if it’s a closed shop, there’s not too many storylines in there.

“But at the same time, the PGA Tour is becoming a little bit more like that. What formats are they going to do? Is there a 70-man field? I don’t know.

Matt will be pleased to know that hopefully a deal is getting closer, as H.E. Yasir Al-Rumayyan the Governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and Jay Monahan are both in the field this week on the DP World Tour to play in the pro-am portion in Scotland. A bonus being they’re playing together in Round One at Carnoustie, which gets underway in less than an hour!

“There’s people that are smarter than me are involved. They know how to run businesses and know what to do and they are smart people. Smarter than me, and I would say smarter than the majority of the PGA TOUR players and golfers.”

Main Image: Vaughn Ridley