5 minute read
Editor’s Letter
NEW WORLD ORDER
KENT GRAY kent.gray@motivate.ae Twitter: @KentGrayGolf / @GolfDigestME
Y
OU’VE COME to the right place for world class golf. The Middle East that is. No matter how the increasingly fractious, multifaceted battle for professional golf eventually shakes out around the world, it seems the region cannot lose.
Whether it is the PGA Tour-European Tour alliance, the mooted LIV Golf Investments start-up league, LIV’s confirmed investment in the Asian Tour, or perhaps even the Premier Golf League (PGL), the Middle East is helping (or has in the case of the PGL) reshape the pro game. The upshot, whichever way the cards fall, is a plethora of tournaments for fans to enjoy in our increasingly vital part of the golfi ng world.
For starters, the newly rebadged DP World Tour – you may remember it as the European Tour – will start the 2022 calendar year (in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 20 to be exact) with fi ve events in a tweaked Desert Swing. It includes a new $2 million event in Ras Al Khaimah and before that the upgrading of the Dubai Desert Classic to $8 million Rolex Series status alongside Abu Dhabi. By the time the circuit returns to Dubai for the 14th DP World Tour Championship next November, the DP World brand will have traversed 47 events in 27 countries – and a record $10 million purse will await at the 48th and fi nal event at JGE.
Over on the fi scally emboldened Asian Tour, the 2022 season will start at the upgraded, $5 million Saudi International, once a Euro Tour star puller. In addition to the big names now en-route to Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, fans can expect at least one of the 10 new premier events bolted onto the Asian Tour schedule - courtesy of a $200 million, 10-year investment by LIV Golf- to be played in the Middle East. Don’t be surprised if at least three MENA Tour events will also be aligned to the Asian Development Tour, perhaps as a precursor to a full merger of the two feeder circuits.
If either the LIV Golf-aligned start-up league or the PGL gets off the ground, and that is a big if, events in the Middle East are also guaranteed. They might even bring refreshingly innovative formats.
If there is any criticism of all of the events previously mentioned it is that they are of the 72-hole strokeplay, cookie-cutter variety. That’s not fundamentally a bad thing but variety is the spice of life – and perhaps the only way to attract new, younger audiences to the game. Increasing purses at events that remain exactly the same – tournaments that haven’t previously guaranteed the best players showing up - simply kicks the can down the road.
Perhaps the PGA Tour will provide some much-needed zest with a series of lucrative, limited field, no cut events for the game’s biggest names in the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Asia. They’d reportedly be played during the U.S. fall (a period where PGA Tour TV ratings for the post FedEx Cup playoff and pre-Christmas break
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan (le ) and European Tour group Chief Executive Keith Pelley share a joke.
events have fallen off a cliff) and could even include a team component, a cut-andpaste response to the PGL and believed LIV Golf models.
If there is a genuine positive about the PGL/LIV Golf disruption, it is that the status quo tours have been forced to examine, well, the sometimes stale status quo. You might argue they are still too focused on their members (justified) at the expense of fans who can’t possibly stay engaged all-season long with so many same-same 72-hole events, many of them minus stars that actually move the needle. But the mooted PGA Tour fall series – maybe as early as 2023 but more likely 2024 – seems to be addressing the desire to see golf’s best play each other more often with no chance of a superstar missing the cut to the disappointment of fans whose weekend plans are suddenly wrecked as a result, not to mention sponsors who have invested millions and flown important clients in from around the world.
Ultimately, hopefully, the winners of this fascinating global reorder will be the fans. It seems a given if you call the Middle East home.
editor-in-chief Obaid Humaid Al Tayer managing partner & group editor Ian Fairservice
editor Kent Gray art director Clarkwin Cruz editorial assistant Londresa Flores instruction editors Luke Tidmarsh, Euan Bowden, Tom Ogilvie, Matthew Brookes, Lea Pouillard, Alex Riggs chief commercial officer Anthony Milne publisher David Burke general manager - production S. Sunil Kumar assistant production manager Binu Purandaran
the golf digest publications editor-in-chief Jerry Tarde
director, business development &
partnerships Greg Chatzinoff international editor Ju Kuang Tan
golf digest usa editor-in-chief Jerry Tarde general manager Chris Reynolds editorial director Max Adler executive editor Peter Morrice art director Chloe Galkin managing editors Alan P. Pittman, Ryan Herrington (News) chief playing editor Tiger Woods playing editors Phil Mickelson, Francesco Molinari, Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Tom Watson
Scan the QR Code to read, download and share the latest, and back issues, of Golf Digest Middle East.
head office: Media One Tower, PO Box 2331, Dubai, UAE Tel +971 4 427 3000; Fax +971 4 428 2270 dubai media city: SD 2-94, 2nd Floor, Building 2, Dubai, UAE Tel +971 4 390 3550; Fax +971 4 390 4845 abu dhabi: PO Box 43072, UAE Tel +971 2 657 3490; Fax +971 2 657 3489 london: Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London NW1 3ER, UK, E-mail: motivateuk@motivate.ae
GOLF DIGEST and HOW TO PLAY, WHAT TO PLAY, WHERE TO PLAY are registered trademarks of Discovery Golf, Inc. Copyright © 2021 Discovery Golf, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Volume 72, Issue 2. GOLF DIGEST (ISSN 0017-176X) is published eight times a year by Discovery Golf, Inc. Principal office: Golf Digest, 1180 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y., 10036. Discovery Golf, Inc.: Alex Kaplan, President & GM; Gunnar Wiedenfels, Chief Financial Officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional mailing offices.
