With a freshly unveiled statue of Old Tom Morris looking down on golf’s most famous green, the game’s ancient and spiritual home might just have borne witness to significant developments in a troubled sport.
Certainly, the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, which concluded on St Andrews’ Old Course last Sunday with victory for LIV player Tyrrell Hatton, provided pause for thought about how Europe’s leading tour might approach an uncertain future.
In a current state of paralysis, golf seeks to end a greedy civil war. It is a mess compounded by the DP World Tour’s ‘strategic alliance’ with the PGA Tour.
The deal, which nominally runs until 2035 and secured the Wentworth circuit financially, also lopsidedly favours the Americans. They boss the calendar and cherry pick Europe’s top talent.
For the past few years, the European tour has been left to shoe-horn its biggest tournaments into the back end of an exhausting season, and only after the PGA’s precious play-offs have been concluded in August. Initially, there seemed a potential upside for Europe, but it has not properly materialised.
Hopes that the US circuit’s bigger names would venture to this side of the pond to add stardust to events such as the Dunhill and BMW PGA, as well as the Irish and French Opens, have proven unfounded.
While DP World Tour loyalist Billy Horschel came and conquered at Wentworth for the second time last month, he is a rare exception. We see precious little American enthusiasm from any of their other big names.
Yes, there were massive crowds for the recent PGA, but they did not turn up to see Peter Malnati and Mark Hubbard – the next two most prominent US golfers to dig out dusty passports.
By contrast, last week’s Dunhill and the invitations of its powerful tournament boss, South African Johan Rupert, imported a bucketload of stardust from the rival LIV tour.
Among the 14 LIV golfers who took part in this glorified pro-am, where early rounds are also played at Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, were former world number one and Masters champion Jon Rahm, five times major winner Brooks Koepka and 2018 Augusta victor Patrick Reed.
This is the sort of star-power craved by the DP World Tour to supplement the likes of Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Matt Fitzpatrick, who offer crucial support to the European circuit at this time of year.
Rupert also engineered it so that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan competed and played together as amateurs.
DP World Tour boss Guy Kinnings was also present. So there was plenty of scope for developing ongoing talks to bring further Saudi investment into golf and potentially agree a more harmonious future.
Kinnings’ position in all of this was, surely, bolstered by the quality of the pro field.
Imagine this scenario developing; LIV stars – including US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau – routinely playing DP World Tour events and picking up the sort of world ranking points that have now returned Hatton to the world’s top 20.
How about, in return, Saudi investment pouring into Wentworth? The appeals by Hatton, Rahm and Adrian Meronk against fines for playing LIV events without releases could be quietly dropped.
Some might recoil at strengthening ties with Saudi Arabia but the European tour has never had a problem with doing deals with the Kingdom, despite its controversial reputation on human rights.
Money talks: “Pinch your noses chaps, we’re going in. This is too good to refuse.”
Like it or not, morality takes a back seat when cash becomes the driver. It is why splashing it for ‘sportswashing’ purposes, according to some critics, seems so worthwhile to the Saudis.
For Kinnings’ tour there is a future, if they can buy their way out of the strategic alliance, that potentially involves more money, more big name players and probably more sponsorship.
McIlroy said last week that he finds European tour events “more authentic and not as corporate” as in the US, adding that the “crowds at the Irish Open and Wentworth, compared to the three FedEx Cup play-off events, were bigger and the atmosphere better”.
The European tour could return to being a rival to rather than a partner of the PGA Tour, especially if the current stodgy negotiations continue to falter, or the deal fails to pass the scrutiny of the US Department of Justice.
“It would maybe bring the European tour back to like the ’80s and ’90s when there was two strong tours,” said McIlroy, when I recently asked him about the prospect of a breakaway Saudi deal with the continental circuit.
“But it keeps the game divided and I don’t like that. You know, I really want the game to come back together. It would be Plan B. It would be maybe an alternative to the best solution.”
McIlroy’s vision is for the game to come together with a global calendar that benefits everyone. He told BBC Northern Ireland last week that he would like to see it done by the end of the year.
There is impatience.
It is now 17 months since the shock announcement of a ‘framework agreement’ that was prematurely portrayed as a merger between the PGA and DP World Tours and LIV.
Very little has emerged, other than the formation of the for-profit umbrella PGA Tour Enterprises company that has $1.5bn (£1.15bn) of funding from the US-based sports venture capitalist Strategic Sports Group.
It is thought SSG want a Saudi deal done quickly. That could also suit the PIF and LIV players, who are wondering what the long term future holds for their circuit.
The DP World Tour is increasingly keen to know the outlook of the men’s pro game. But is there the same urgency for the PGA Tour?
They have lucrative TV contracts secured for the rest of the decade, sponsors in place and seemingly unwavering support from their season-long backer, FedEx.
Might they just want to play for time, see how LIV reacts as contracts with several of their initial crop of players begin to expire? Will the Saudis continue to send massive oil soaked cheques to pick off top PGA Tour players? Who knows?
Monahan, and influential board members such as Patrick Cantlay and Tiger Woods, might want to wait and see. This could further frustrate the fragile peace process aimed at ending an increasingly tedious stand off.
But the Dunhill showed there is a potential alternative path for the DP World Tour that, at the very least, provides Kinnings with some leverage to give Monahan and co the hurry up.
Back in the 19th century, Old Tom was golf’s most important pioneer. He helped make St Andrews the undisputed ‘home of golf’ but Morris Snr’s influence was felt far and wide. He truly – to use the LIV buzz phrase – “grew the game”.
Maybe, just maybe, the arrival of his long-awaited statue has coincided with the next significant steps to be taken by his sport.
