Co-sanctioning should have led to golf's ultimate World Tour, instead the PGA TOUR, not LIV, has rendered our Tour an irrelevance
17 February 2025 - SHANK Media, by Matt Hooper: The Year 2000, an iconic year of our time, the peak of an era of moving from the old world to the new one, and the year this sport's greatest star was inarguably the most famous and impactful athlete in the world. Tiger Woods' greatest year was the Year 2000, he won 11 times including 3 Major Championships and he accrued the highest number of Official World Golf Ranking points ever, and between the start of the 2000 European Tour season (November 1999) and the end of 2000, he played three regular European Tour events. Tiger took his superstar power to Taiwan, Germany and Thailand, recording a fifth place in Taiwan, a third place in Germany and a victory in Thailand.
The two tournaments he played - the Johnnie Walker Classic (1999 and 2000) and Deutsche Bank SAP Open TPC of Europe - both no longer exist, and remarkably of the 40 tournaments outside the majors which made up the schedule on the 2000 European Tour, only 14 remain. That means a quite incredible 26 tournaments have ceased to exist or are no longer sanctioned by the European Tour, mainly the former. The flow of the schedule was also absolutely tremendous in 2000, giving the European Tour a strong global beginning in South Africa, Australia, Asia, the Middle East, before two tournaments in South America before the Masters.
May was one of the strongest months of the season with the Spanish Open, French Open, PGA Championship, Deutsche Bank SAP Open TPC of Europe and Benson and Hedges International Open, and July into August was stout, with the Irish Open, European Open, Loch Lomond World Invitational (now Scottish Open), Dutch Open, Scandinavian Masters, and British Masters.
Then it had a strong autumn finish with the BMW International Open, Canon European Masters, Trophee Lancôme, World Match Play Championship, Alfred Dunhill Cup, Italian Open and the Volvo Masters. The season concluded with the now defunct WGC-American Express Championship, played at Valderrama.
The Tour had a real cadence in its schedule, a momentum with high points and really strong events, and was launching in new destinations around the world. It was the must play place for the global golfer, not just a stop on the road to the PGA TOUR. In 2000, Colin Montgomerie was world number 3, and he played 17 regular European Tour events, 2 regular PGA TOUR events, 3 World Golf Championships, and 4 Major Championships. That means he played 7 events in the United States. The current world number 3, Rory McIlroy played 15 tournaments in the United States in 2024.
Monty's schedule took him to England, Scotland, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, France and Dubai. His appearances in the Bay Hill Invitational (now the Arnold Palmer Invitational) and THE PLAYERS Championship were due to his stellar play on the European Tour, and he was joined by many of the other top players on the European Tour, and other tours around the world. 25 years on, it is impossible for a player to be among the top players in the game by only playing 7 tournaments in the United States, due to the ridiculous amendments to the Official World Golf Ranking system, and the financial muscle of the PGA TOUR. The European Tour (now the DP World Tour) is now unquestionably a feeder tour to the United States-based PGA TOUR, with just a handful of semi-strong events throughout the season.
Even its flagship Rolex Series events are now nothing better than a middle-ranking PGA TOUR event. The recent Hero Dubai Desert Classic featured 18 of the World's Top 100 including 2 of the top 10, in contrast the 2000 Deutsche Bank SAP Open TPC of Europe saw 29 of the World's Top 100 including 4 of the top 10 travel to Germany. That tournament was not alone in attracting such a strong field either, with the Trophee Lancôme near Paris attracting 3 of the top 10 and 24 of the top 100, and one quarter of the top 100 playing in the Smurfit European Open. The leading European golfers were not bound to spend their entire seasons in America, and the leading American-based players played more events on other tours around the world than they do now.
Tiger Woods played in Taiwan, Germany and Thailand, as well as two World Cups in Malaysia and Argentina and the WGC in Spain, Ernie Els played in South Africa, Scotland, England and Spain, and two years earlier the pair staged an epic battle in Thailand at the Johnnie Walker Classic. The European Tour schedule had a bit of everything, and it also allowed space in the calendar for many of the world's best to head to South Africa for the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge, to Japan for the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament, and to Australia for the Australian Open. Throughout the calendar the European Tour worked closely in partnership with the Sunshine Tour, Asian Tour and PGA Tour of Australasia, co-sanctioning events which felt like mini-World Golf Championships.
Sadly due to numerous factors which I previously outlined, so many of these events have disappeared over the last 2 decades, including the World Golf Championships, but the strategic alliance, when first announced, felt like the breakthrough in a path towards a World Tour. Unfortunately it has been anything but, and the alliance has been strategic, but for only one party - the PGA TOUR. The two tours co-sanction three events - the Scottish Open and two events most people couldn't name or tell you where they were played, aside from they are in the US.
Imagine how impactful the co-sanctioning of the Dubai Desert Classic, Scottish Open, Irish Open, Spanish Open, BMW PGA Championship, Australian Open, South African Open, Canadian Open, Brazil Open, Argentina Open, Arnold Palmer Invitational, THE PLAYERS Championship and the World Series of Golf, along with the other events such as the Johnnie Walker Classic, Australian Masters and Dunlop Phoenix Tournament, could have been. It would have been revolutionary for the professional sport, and the worldwide game as a whole, whilst keeping each tour intact, without the need to create some kind of fake pyramid of golf. We aren't football.
The European Tour was ripe for major investment 25 years ago, with a global schedule, a phenomenal cast list of main players, and the occasional star visitor from the US. It never came, and our main players have migrated to the United States, and now the system demands that they do. LIV Golf could have been the saviour of the tour, maybe it still can be.
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