Pepperell Reveals Why Talks Between DP World Tour And LIV Golf Fell Through
Eddie Pepperell has recalled a conversation with DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley and why a proposal to incorporate LIV Golf into the European circuit's season fell through.
"Having spoken to Keith, and I trust his word on this, he said to me that one of his proposals was to the guys at LIV was to take the autumn and have eight events and put your product in that part of the year," he told the Stripe Show Podcast.
"It's a part of the year that the PGA Tour famously suffers. It's actually, ironically, one of our strongest parts of the year. He [Keith Pelley] was prepared to accommodate LIV at the expense of our own Tour because he could see that LIV was going to be part of the furniture moving forward."
Despite Pelley's efforts, it would seem they were not part of LIV Golf's plans. "They didn't want that," the Englishman said. "They wanted 14 events. They wanted their own thing.
"It comes to the point where if you're Keith Pelley, and this is where I see it and agree entirely with Keith, if you put yourself in Rory McIlroy's shoes, if you're going to sign up to play 14 times plus four Majors, you might play three or four other times per year - which is not going to satisfy, in any way shape or form, the needs commercially of the PGA Tour or the European Tour. You have to go back to LIV and say, this is not going to work for us."
After months of speculation, LIV Golf launched its lucrative eight-event Series in March ahead of its curtain raiser at Centurion Club in June. It has since dominated the headlines and unveiled an expanded 14-tournament schedule for 2023 - with 48 players and 12 established team franchises competing for enormous $405m total prize purse, a huge increase on the $225m on offer this year.
Pepperell was involved in a war of words earlier this week after he again teased about a "proposition" presented to LIV Golf. Within, the 31-year-old stated it would "enable all three [LIV Golf, PGA Tour and DP World Tour] to work (at the expense of the DPWT no less) but they turned it down."
Lee Westwood responded and labelled the DP World Tour a "feeder tour" before insisting it had "handed over control" in respect to its strategic alliance with the PGA Tour. Earlier this year, Pelley rubbished claims of the sort describing them as "utter nonsense."
Irrespective of historic conversations, it would seem the separation between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf is at it's largest, with the three parties set to lock horns in legal battle throughout much of the next year.
Catch all of Pepperell's interview on the Stripe Show Podcast below:
