Pelley Insists European Tour "Categorically" Not In Financial Hole; Says PGA Tour Alliance Came Together In 72 Hours

Chief Executive Colorfully Coordinated sported a less-than-comforting black-on-black motif for Friday’s hastily-arranged Zoom to spin the European Tour’s “landmark strategic alliance” with the PGA Tour.

Based on the reports by those partaking in the call, Keith Pelley remained light on details about the surprising Thanksgiving Friday announcement. Skepticism was in order given that it’s traditionally a day reserved for only Grade A, First Team, All-World news dumps.

The Daily Mail’s Derek Lawrenson noted the 72 hour mention by Pelley and suggested the announcement was meant to torpedo an upcoming announcement.

The alliance has been years in the making but came together in the space of 72 hours as both tours look to kill off the upstart Saudi-backed Premier Golf League. 

The PGL have promised untold millions to the top players and were rumoured to be ready to make a big announcement next month regarding a circuit for the elite they hoped would be up and running by 2023.

Alistair Tait attempted to parse Pelley’s comments and found the missing details disconcerting.

You’d have thought after four and a half years of talking to PGA Tour counterpart Jay Monahan they’d have laid out some basic plans of where this strategic alliance was going to take the game. No. Just airy-fairy stuff cobbled together over 72 hours. Why the rush?

“You might ask, why now?” Pelley acknowledged. “Jay and I have been talking about working closer together for the last four and a half years. I've always said golf is very fractioned with four major championships and two professional organisations. This was just a moment in time when everything aligned.”

Who said stars can’t align during Thanksgiving week in a pandemic?

Tait goes on to analyze several components to the deal and it’s well worth your time.

Sky Sports’ Ali Stafford features the most Pelley quotes, including this jargon-laced doozy. It was the COVID that did it:

"I think the whole process made us realise, you know, we are in this game together, and we have so many synergies. We are both committed to growth and globalisation of golf, and I think the Covid showed us that actually we shouldn't be competing against each other.

"We should be pulling together and aggregating our skills and our best practises, our commercial streams to ultimately benefit both tours and the game of golf, which has seen an incredible boost, and I think what we can do together, it really gets me excited."

Probably the biggest reveal came with the following quote, placed high in Brian Keough’s Irish Golf Desk assessment of the call.

But Pelley vehemently denied it was tantamount to a first step towards a merger, explaining that the deal came about after it turned down “a very compelling offer” by the private equity group fronting the breakaway Premier Golf League, Raine Capital, “to take the European Tour to another level but in a different direction.”

“Compelling” and using “another level” only adds intrigue to this bizarre late-year news dump.