DP World Tour Group communications officer Daniel Van Otterdijk believes that the DP World Tour, PGA TOUR and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will strike a deal within the next six months.
Since the three parties announced a framework agreement in June of last year, the sixteen months that have followed have been tireless negotiations with a deal yet to be reached despite more public meetings and appearances between PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and PGA TOUR commissioner Jay Monahan while Guy Kinnings has become a prominent figure recently.
A deal would see the PIF pump more than $1 billion into PGA TOUR Enterprises and Otterdijk is confident a deal can be reached by the time the Masters rolls around next April.
“If you take the sort of media nonsense and the perceived politics out of it, if you look at all three bodies, the PGA Tour, which is now very much supported by the Fenway Sports Group, LIV Golf, which is supported by the PIF, and the DP World Tour, which is supported by us, they are all entities that love golf – no doubt about it,” said Van Otterdijk, speaking to Gulf News at the DP World Tour Playoffs launch event at Expo City in Dubai.
“His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan is probably one of the biggest golf fans in the world. So, everyone has the right intention. And when you have parties who disagree on the way forward, but everybody has the right intention, inevitably they come together and solve it.
“We’re confident that within the next six months they’ll come up with a structure that befits world golf in a much better way than what we currently have, but of course, there are legacy issues to sort out.”
Otterdijk believe that the men’s professional golf landscape could mirror the cricket calendar.
“The way that it will go, as far as we can see, if you look at cricket as a model, cricketers these days can play in franchise leagues around the world – the IPL, the Big Bash – whatever it is,” said Van Otterdijk.
“It’s kind of like a smorgasbord of cricket they can play in. The top players, like Joe Root, Kane Williamson or Virat Kohli, will say, ‘look, I’m in my 30s, I’ve made X amount of money, I’m now going to play the elite tournaments.
“They make a schedule based on their fitness and all the rest of it. They’re playing those tournaments and making their money. But they’ve governed by a variety of different bodies – a very powerful body, the BCCI, the MCC and then you’ve got Cricket Australia, Cricket New Zealand, and so on.
“They’ve all got their own governorships, if you like, and yet they work harmoniously together through the ICC in creating a schedule when there’s, I wouldn’t say there’s none, but there’s limited overlap between all the franchise tournaments that get played. Golf will head the same way.
“I can see an end-to-end calendar from January to December, where there’s a prominent place for the PGA Tour, a prominent place for LIV Golf and a promiment place for the DP World Tour, but there will be overlaps.
“A guy like Tommy [Fleetwood] can say ‘look, I want to keep my PGA Tour card, and I want to play on the DP World Tour, but I’d like to play some LIV Golf events as well’.
“I think LIV Golf will combine their current team structure – that will probably drop, but they’ll still have team events.”
Earlier this month Rory McIlroy spoke at the Alfred Dunhill Links where he outlined his optimism that a peace deal could be struck before the New Year before changing his stance and saying it could be up to three years before golf’s civil war is brought to an end.