Keith Pelley has been at the helm of the European Tour as Chief Executive since August 2015. His first four months on the job has been anything but unproductive. The moves he's made include removing the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational from this year's schedule (because it would clash with the Alstom Open de France) and decreasing the number of tournaments for members from 13 to 5 (excluding majors and WGCs/team events).
The 51-year-old Canadian took over from George O'Grady, who had been at the helm since 2005. Pelley brings a different outlook to the job, someone who hadn't had any experience in the golf world. He brings more of a business mindset, which is something that the Tour needed. His enthusiasm and drive has been easily noticeable. His relationship with the Tour members will only develop over time, but he's gotten off to a good start in that respect. From an outsider's view, the players have been more open towards Pelley than they were towards O'Grady. They're confident that he's the man to get the Tour nearer to the PGA Tour.
Following this paragraph is an excerpt from a TSN interview with Pelley in December 2015 discussing his goals for the Tour going forward, specifically with increasing prize funds. Pelley has lofty goals for the Tour and it's hard not to believe that he'll accomplish those goals. Just based on his career history with media and television in Canada, he views his new job with the Tour as a challenge that he will overcome. A crucial thing is that the Tour seems to be 100% behind him and wants to see his goals come to fruition. I will be very interested to see if and when these proposals come into play.
Q. To get the players back you’ll need to increase purses. How difficult will that be to do?
A. We have a robust plan in place. We need to provide a viable alternative for our members. We need to be too important to be dismissed by our sponsors, by our stakeholders or by our players, and to do that we are going to have to increase our prize purses. That won’t happen overnight and it’s not necessarily going to happen in 2016. But you’ll start to see it happen in 2017 and come to fruition in 2018. Within three to five years we will definitely have a viable alternative, so that a 17-, 18-, 19-year-old doesn’t necessarily need to go to America to be able to make as much money as he possibly can.
Source: http://www.tsn.ca/pelley-on-his-plans-for-the-european-tour-1.413486
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