English pro rips (!) into DP World Tour over PGA Tour cards: "A disaster"

English tour pro Eddie Pepperell says he thinks it's a 'disaster' for the European-based DP World Tour to hand their top-10 players PGA Tour cards. 

Speaking on the latest episode of The Chipping Forecast, the golfer said he can't think of 'any good business' that tries to not retain its clients. 

"That makes no sense to me," he said. 

As it stands Adrian Meronk, Ryan Fox, Victor Perez, Min Woo Lee, Alexander Bjork, Ryo Hisatsune, Thorbjorn Olesen, Joost Luiten, Marcel Siem and Ryder Cup hero Robert MacIntyre will be heading to the North American circuit. 

For his part, DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley has defended the move. 

In a previous interview with bunkered, Pelley insisted the decision to hand out the PGA Tour cards via the DP World Tour was just formalising a pathway that always existed. 

A feeder tour is the Korn Ferry Tour, he pointed out, which has one specific goal of graduating players to the PGA Tour.

"That is not what the DP World Tour is," he said. 

Hitting back at the 'feeder tour' claims, Pelley blasted: "To say that I would be irritated by that comment would be a gargantuan understatement.

"It's a narrative that our staff is pretty well tired of hearing."

Pepperell isn't buying it and presented his view. 

He explained: "I personally think it's a disaster for the DP World Tour. I can't think of any good business that tries to not retain its clients, if you like. Just give the best ones away. That makes no sense to me. But from the players perspective, who all have frankly ambitions to play on the biggest stage, which clearly now is [the] PGA Tour. It's good for them.

"Now, it's one of those things, how long can both of those things be in existence? Because to me, it doesn't seem sustainable that the tour continues to operate successfully while giving away its best players. But equally, the players feel like it's a good thing. So, I'm afraid I don't like it at all. And like you say, it's extremely formal now to the point where next year, or the year after, these players are all going to be falling back into an extremely high category on the DP World Tour anyway."

He continued: "So, there really is no incentive next year for these guys next year to play any tournaments on the DP World Tour other than their minimum events. Which I just can't get my head around as a strategy commercially from the DP World Tour.

"But, it is what it is, I guess it's in return frankly from all the investment that the PGA Tour are making, and to be clear, that's going to be well into the hundreds and hundreds of millions across a five year period. So, the PGA Tour clearly want to see some return, part of the return is getting some very good European players."

Pepperell's comments come as it was confirmed PGA Tour players who finish 126-200 in the FedEx Cup can take up full DP World Tour membership in 2024. 

Lee Westwood decided to mock that news. 

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