The past few months have been a whirlwind for Keith Pelley. In January, the Toronto native and past president of Rogers Media and TSN resigned as chief executive officer of the DP World Tour after nine years. He did so to come home and take over as CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. SCOREGolf business analyst Rick Young recently chatted with Pelley on a number of subjects. In Part I of that interview, Pelley reflects on his time in Europe.

What will you miss most about being the CEO of the DP World Tour?

The places I got to travel, the people I got to meet, the players, our team. I was in 42 different countries during my time overseas. It was transformational for my family. I lived in Wentworth (England, where the DP World Tour is headquartered at the Wentworth Club), which is one of the most spectacular golf facilities in the world. There’s nothing like it anywhere. I’ll miss seeing great golf courses, the countries we played in and sharing amazing experiences with Joan (Pelley’s wife) and the kids. What I’m really going to miss is the Ryder Cup. To be part of that was incredible in every possible way. The crowds, the entertainment, the emotion, the first tee. The highlight for me was France in 2018. The atmosphere there was off the charts. I remember being in the locker room after we won with the players and the families and I recall looking over and there’s Jason (Pelley’s son) talking with Tommy Fleetwood side-by-side — laughing, joking with each other. I looked at Joan and I said that’s why we did this. It would have taken a special opportunity for me to come back home and leave the golf world because I had a magical nine years on the DP World Tour. Yes, Covid came in the middle of it, and we had challenges with LIV (Golf), but I wouldn’t trade those nine years for the world.

You and Jason had a game with Corey Conners before you came home. How was that? 

Great father-son memory. We played at Wentworth. The advice Corey gave to Jason and the way he carried himself is typical of professional golfers. They’re great athletes and great people. He had a typical day with us — 10 pars, eight birdies and shot 64 the first time he’d ever seen the golf course. Routine day at the office for Corey Conners.

What about the Masters. Will you miss going?  

No question. Augusta National is one of the most special places in the world and the Masters is one of the game’s great experiences. I admit I am going to enjoy being able to cheer for some of the unbelievable people I’ve got to know in the game because you can’t do that running a member organization. So that’s going to be fun. I had 20 of the lads at Real Sports (an MLSE-owned restaurant in downtown Toronto) to watch the final round a couple weeks ago. It was good not to miss a shot of Sunday at the Masters and pull for the likes of Rory (McIlroy) and Tommy (Fleetwood) and Shane Lowry.  

Do you still shake your head about how you got the DP World Tour through the pandemic?

The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in business. We went from a growth business and being excited about a number of different things we had going on to staring at survival overnight. The biggest challenge with Covid was that the DP World Tour plays all around the world. It’s an international brand and a global company. There were a lot of tough times. I got this call from Prince Moulay Rachid from Morocco, one day, and he said, ‘Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to have the tournament this year.’ It was the fourth cancellation of an event that day. But no way we were going down without a fight. We started having meetings at 7:30 in the morning. We put together a Covid team and said, ‘Okay, we have to be creative and we looked at everything.’ We took out a bank loan, we used the Ryder Cup as collateral to get the loan and we gradually made some progress. We did what we had to do to keep the tour moving forward. Thinking back now, I don’t think I ever worked like that before.

Were there positives that came out of those couple of years?

The tour came out of the pandemic with new relationships, new stakeholders and it was gratifying how our partners rallied and stuck with us. Companies like BMW and Rolex were there for us and to be honest, I believe we came out of Covid stronger. We paid off our bank loan and then the PGA Tour invested in European Tour Productions in November of 2020 and that put us on a path to a strategic alliance. It was a pretty amazing turnaround.

How do you look back on some of the initiatives that happened on your watch?
Anytime you come in you try and leave an organization in better shape than when you started. Even getting DP World and bringing them in as a title partner was big for us. I never felt European Tour really fit the brand because it was a global tour. I think what we did on social, winning so many different awards, elevated our tour. A lot of companies and different sports organizations even wanted us to do social for them, so I was always proud of our team’s creativity and commitment. At the end of the day, the tour is sustainable with growth and guaranteed purses and as a member’s organization purses went up significantly based on our commitment to innovation, sponsors and the commercial revenue we were able to drive.

What about the pathway to the PGA Tour?

I’m proud of the pathway, too. I still get my back up when the pathway gets criticized. With it, we finalized something that had been there for so long. I realized pretty quickly with the European Tour at the start of my tenure, and the DP World Tour at the end, you’re never going to be able to compete with the PGA Tour. That’s based not only on the amount of golfers and the popularity and size of the U.S. market, but overseas, we play many events in niche markets. The population of Scotland is 5.5 million; population of Ireland is 5.1 million. Well, the population of Florida alone is 22 million and there are 1,200 golf courses. Our biggest market is Scotland with 550 courses. I remember Keith Waters (DP World Tour COO) telling me very early in my tenure that it would probably be easier to have our entire tour in Florida and that we could potentially generate as much revenue there as you could internationally. Of course, we wouldn’t have had the leverage to do anything with the PGA Tour if we hadn’t acquired the rights to our media from IMG. When I got over there, IMG owned 50 per cent. Getting control of our media rights helped give us the leverage to do some things. As a member organization, that helped increase playing opportunities and prize funds for our members. It was an interesting time but I think the tour is positioned well, it’s in very good shape from a global perspective and the pathway is part of that.

A few eyebrows were raised early in your tenure when the Ryder Cup was awarded to Italy. In the end, it was a home run. What went into the decision to go to a pretty niche golf market?

Probably the first big decision I had during my time overseas. We got to around December 2015 and there were four bidders at the time — Austria, Spain, Italy and Germany. I was in the minority, but I felt like if we did it properly in Rome it could elevate the brand to a new level. It’s the most spectacular event I’ve ever been to. I was proud to be a part of it.

On a couple of the innovations you tried in Europe, do you think you were too far ahead of the curve with Golf Sixes and Shot Clock Masters?

It’s interesting. When I was with TSN back in 2001, we launched WTSN, which of course was one of the first dedicated women’s sports networks. In 2003, we shut it down. I guess we were 20 years too early because it would certainly work now. I’m pleased Golf Sixes is flourishing in the amateur game and it’s flourishing in the junior game over in Europe. It’s all over Scotland, it’s all over Ireland. In every job you try things. Some work, some don’t and you make mistakes along the way. It was a mistake not to continue with Golf Sixes in a professional way. It was innovative and I believe it would be flourishing at the professional level as well. The R&A asked in the last couple months of my time at DP if they could take the brand because we own the IP (intellectual property) of Golf Sixes. I said that will be a decision for Guy (Kinnings, who took over as DP World Tour CEO), but internally, I can tell you we did have some discussions about bringing Golf Sixes back. We’ll see what happens. Shot Clock Masters was a great concept too and frankly we should have just kept doing it. It was an unbelievable event and was right in the midst of slow play.

In Part II of this interview, Pelly wades into the current divide in men’s golf and what he thinks the future of the game looks like.