DP World Tour chief wants team golf, more match play and an F1-style calendar in 2026
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Exclusive: From his office at Wentworth, DP World Tour chief Guy Kinnings lays out his plan for a unified golf schedule and discusses new TV deals, PGA Tour loans and the future of the Ryder Cup
Reminders of one’s past are usually something to keep quiet about, but Guy Kinnings likes to make an exception where the Ryder Cup is concerned. I find him sat behind his desk on the second floor of the European Tour Group’s HQ at Wentworth, flanked by five replica Ryder Cups on the shelf behind him. “It’s quite the backdrop,” he says, whenever he’s on a Zoom call with his US counterpart from the PGA of America. “It’s a little reminder that we’ve got this one, and then this one,” he adds, cackling with delight. “It annoys them immensely.”
Rescuing them – along with many more that were stashed away in boxes – was one of his first acts in becoming Deputy CEO and Ryder Cup Director, a post he held for six years before being named the fifth Chief Executive in the history of the European Tour Group on April 2, 2024. The spoils of his and the Tour’s successes are purposely visible as soon as you enter his office. There are two Sports Personality of the Year trophies, as well as a Lego Ryder Cup which was gifted to him by Thomas Bjorn after Paris 2018.
We share a joke about the many lanyards he has kept from tournaments over the years. “I had hair back then,” he says, pointing to one from the late ’90s. Hundreds of them are chaotically lined up on one side of the room, with a dozen or so pink ties on the other. He admits the ties have become something of his trademark. “Tiger has, bless him, called me ‘Pinky’ in the past because I can’t resist a bit of pink,” he says.
An ambitious ascent
Kinnings is unashamedly old school in the way he likes to work and operate. At almost every tournament this year, he instructed the Tour’s player relations team to set up breakfast, lunch, or dinner meetings with up to eight members at a time to talk privately and share ideas. “I’ve done the same internally as well, listening to all the team, so I can get a sense of what they want,” he admits. “Hopefully, when it comes to these bigger-picture discussions, I can then lead us in the best way.”
Those who know him best will tell you that he is an excellent communicator and an even better leader. From a young age, he gravitated towards positions of authority and was made head boy and then captain of the school cricket team. He owes a great debt of gratitude to his parents who moved the family home, from Wolverhampton to Shropshire, so he and his younger brother Max could get the best education. He took Latin and Greek at A-Level and got into Oxford, where he studied law between 1982 and 1985. His first job was as a solicitor at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, a London law firm, which helped get his foot in the door at IMG. He stayed there for the next 29 years, working his way up from the legal department to managing IMG’s global golf division, alongside Mark Steinberg, as Co-Managing Director. He was so well in with the brands, manufacturers, and heads of state that he represented future Ryder Cup captains Colin Montgomerie, Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington, and Thomas Bjorn. He was even best man at Monty’s second wedding.
The expectation in the industry was that he would follow Steinberg out of the door and set up his own management company. So why didn’t he? “I did absolutely love it at IMG,” he says. “I had been asked to consider other things, but I had never really done that because I’m sort of a loyal soul. But when the opportunity came to work on the Ryder Cup, which I absolutely love, I really couldn’t say no.”
He joined the Tour three months before Paris 2018, which meant he had to wait another five years to properly make his mark on a home Ryder Cup. It proved to be quite the journey. Working around the pandemic, he set up a Ryder Cup Committee and was part of a team that appointed Luke Donald as Europe’s captain for Rome after Henrik Stenson exited the role. In the boardroom, he brought new partners to the table, such as DP World, Hilton and Fortinet, which contributed to a 100% uplift in sponsorship revenue for 2024, against pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
A track record like that made him the obvious candidate to succeed Keith Pelley when the time came, especially as he always seemed overqualified to be anyone’s No.2. “To be honest, it was a job I was chuffed to bits to be given the chance to do. I got to know everyone at the Tour in that time because as well as doing the Ryder Cup, I then took on the commercial side, which is now significantly stronger. I was Deputy CEO as well, so I was closely involved in everything we were doing. I handled a lot of the discussions, so when Keith announced he was off to Toronto, it was quite an easy transition. I knew the business, I certainly knew the sport, and I didn’t have to spend my time getting to know people. It allowed me to focus on what I really wanted to do.”
Going global
Kinnings is a talker. A smiler. A hoarder of notepads. He speaks a lot about the opportunities that exist in the sport. Like everyone else, he has been left frustrated by how long negotiations are taking with the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), but he is encouraged about where the DP World Tour sits in those ‘big picture’ discussions.
“As a global tour, we’ve built relationships for the last 50 years in every corner of the globe,” he says. “And if there is an opportunity for the game to come together and go global, we are uniquely positioned to do that. There were some meetings in New York with most of the parties and there were meetings – as everyone saw – at the Dunhill. Personally, I’ve been welcomed into those and I think there is a recognition that we have an important voice.”
He adjusts his tone. “I have been a pain in the neck and I am keen for it to get done. But equally, people shouldn’t think it’s through any lack of effort because there are aspects to what has to be done in a business sense, planning for schedules and players. I get a sense that there is growing momentum. I have seen that in meetings and I think there is a very clear intent. We all recognize that the schedules for 2025 won’t look that different. But by the time we get to 2026, it would be great to think that people can look at it and go, ‘So that’s what we’ve got in store and isn’t that exciting.’ I would love to think that things will be clearer by the end of the year, but we can’t control absolutely everything. I don’t want to set any deadlines that we then fail to make.”
As to how the DP World Tour might fit into a new global tour, Kinnings has a few ideas of his own. He favors a model, suggested by Rory McIlroy, that is truly global and in line with the current Formula One calendar and set-up.
“The key point is we all need to be flexible, to adapt, and remember that the end product needs to appeal to the fans,” he explains. “In my mind there need to be big international tournaments in all of this. Just look at our national opens on Tour. You can see events growing in Asia, we’ve already built them in the Middle East, and we’ve got great events in the UK. We all know there should be a big event in Australia, and in South Africa and Japan of course, where there is a huge market for golf.
“What that looks like on a whiteboard, I don’t know, but we talk about how important team golf is and I would love to see that included. We would love to see more matchplay events. I think all these things are things people would want to see and if everyone comes together, I believe we have the ability to create something that is really appealing to fans.”
Financial favors
Bringing people and partners together is a thread that has run throughout Kinnings’ career. He was instrumental in bringing the Saudis into golf and even worked with the PIF Governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to establish the Saudi International on the DP World Tour. It leads me to question why the Tour didn’t pursue a partnership with the PIF when they had the chance – a point that Kinnings chooses to sidestep.
“From my perspective, we have a wonderful working relationship with the PGA Tour,” he says with a smile.
The true nature of that relationship can be found in the European Tour Group’s newly published accounts, which show that the PGA Tour paid £19,630,000 in ‘underpin funding’ in 2023 to help prop up purses and cover a £19,758,000 deficit under the terms of the strategic alliance. Kinnings puts this operating loss down to increased administrative and staging costs, driven by a combination of post-Covid supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine, with inflation running at +22% compared to Paris 2018.
“The arrangement we have with the PGA Tour is that they provide that underpin, in return for certain assets and investments in European Tour Productions,” he explains. “That’s a very good commercial relationship which provides the security that we want. That’s a quid pro quo that they are comfortable with, and we are comfortable with.”
The protection of a ‘guaranteed underpin’ does provide a nonrepayable safety net, at least until 2027, though it is easy to see why Kinnings is so in favor of uniting the game when the Tour continues to operate beyond their means. Doing so in a Ryder Cup year, which is historically their most profitable, does raise concerns about how sustainable their current business model is.
The feeling among current and former members we’ve spoken to, including Matt Fitzpatrick and Ian Woosnam, is that the DP World Tour is little more than a ‘feeder’ to the PGA Tour now, though Kinnings is adamant that is not the case.
“A feeder tour is a tour that does nothing but feed. That is not us,” he says, repeating an argument previously made by his predecessor. “We are a tour that runs global events of huge standing with quality tournaments. We want to take the game to every corner. Now, as part of it, there is a very clear pathway for all global talent to get to the PGA Tour (with the 10-cards rule). All I’m doing is listening to our membership.
“There are those who might be asking, ‘Is that the right thing to do?’ But I think it is. It helps us as a tour. In France, Matthieu Pavon and Victor Perez returned as heroes with hugely enhanced reputations. Ticket sales and hospitality (for the Open de France) were flying. So, handled the right way, it can help both tours. We are trying to find something that works best for all our members.”
Kinnings sees positives where others might see negatives, but there is no getting away from the disparity that exists between the two tours, with a little more than a $300 million difference in official prize money for the 2024 season.
Kinnings had hoped to see more American players supporting the ‘Back 9’ swing and while he is optimistic that next year will be different, it’s clear he faces a battle to appease the rest of the membership who struggle to see sense in cramming so many big events back-to-back to end the season. “I don’t know a DP World Tour member who is happy about the schedule,” Eddie Pepperell told The Chipping Forecast. “People are playing more golf than they would otherwise want to.”
Kinnings understands the argument of fatigue and you sense he is battling with it himself as he weighs up the pros and cons. “You know what, maybe we can adapt in the future,” he says, after some consideration. He is similarly non-committal when asked what the future might hold for Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton after they appealed against the fines imposed by the Tour for playing on the LIV circuit without a release.
Though no one would ever admit to it, I argue that it would be within everyone’s best interests to delay the legal procedure – as is expected – until after the Ryder Cup so both players remain eligible for selection. Kinnings is smart enough to defer to lawyers in this instance, knowing that a deal to unite the game would – in all likelihood – negate the case Rahm and Hatton have against the Tour.
What stands out from speaking to Kinnings is how much the Ryder Cup still dominates his thinking. He is a big supporter of Luke Donald, having known him since he was an amateur. He was “privately delighted” when he was made Ryder Cup captain the first time. “Luke has always been underestimated,” says Kinnings. “He is extraordinarily meticulous and organized, but he is also so driven. I can’t say I knew, but I was pretty sure he was going to do a good job – and boy, he really did.”
The success on the course in Rome was replicated off it, with sponsorship revenue up 153% versus 2018. Kinnings can rightly claim an assist for both, even if he prefers to deflect praise to the rest of his team. “The Ryder Cup has always been wonderful,” he says, “but it took a quantum leap in Paris and was even better in Rome. We’re sitting here licking our lips, looking forward to New York, Adare (Manor), and wherever else we might go on to… ”
That brings us to reports in Spain, which claim that Camiral, formerly PGA Catalunya, has already won the bidding – ahead of The Belfry and Luton Hoo in England – to host the biennial event in 2031. Kinnings won’t be drawn on that. The plan, he says, is to make an announcement before the end of the year.
He’s got a lot to do between now and then, and still needs to sort out TV deals for 2025 and beyond. He says they are close to renewing terms with Sky Sports but struggles to come up with an answer as to why you can’t watch more highlights on the BBC. He promises to find out for me. Three days later an email drops in my inbox and confirms suspicions that there was nothing stopping the Corporation from showing more than the three events they did this year. They simply chose not to.
Working together
Kinnings remains bullish in the face of so much adversity and uncertainty. He is a master in the art of diplomacy and tiptoes around sensitive, controversial topics with the precision of a surgeon. He spends the next five minutes talking about the need to evolve and unlock new opportunities in the short to medium term. Most of his ideas revolve around his love of mixed and team golf, and bringing back GolfSixes and a matchplay event “if the right commercial partners can be found.”
“Innovation is part of our DNA,” he says, proudly. “Personally, I would love to see mixed golf get a greater airing because there are few sports that can do it that way. It’s our job to try and work on that because it’s a USP for the sport. One of the ways would be to have more mixed events. We work very closely with the LPGA and LET and we would love to have the chance to do that. But right now, there’s some other stuff we need to get fixed.”
There is so much more we could talk about, but a quick glance at his watch reminds him that he’s got another meeting to get to. He is happy to answer a final question about the Ryder Cup, which prompts me to ask whether he would ever entertain selling the title sponsorship to the PIF for an inordinate sum of money. A wry smile appears on his face again.
“The reality is that I have enjoyed my interactions with people at PIF,” he says. “I’ve known Yasir since we first did that event (The Saudi International) and I know what an unbelievable supporter of the game he is. These are people who, very clearly, would be very good partners to have, along with the Strategic Sports Group. These people will be good for the game and I truly think that by all of these parties working together, opportunities will arise that will benefit the game as a whole. Whether the Ryder Cup should be titled, I don’t know. That discussion and debate is down the line. But we would love to have the ability to even think about that.”
About the author
Michael Catling – Features Editor
Michael Catling is an award-winning journalist who specializes in golf’s Majors and Tours, including DP World, PGA, LPGA, and LIV.
Michael joined Today’s Golfer in 2016 and has traveled the world to attend the game’s biggest events and secure exclusive interviews with the game’s biggest names, including Jack Nicklaus, Jordan Spieth, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Gary Player, Martin Slumbers and Justin Thomas.
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DPWT chief Guy Kinnings talks exclusively to TG Features Editor Michael Catling.
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Camiral's Stadium Course has been tipped as a potential host of the 2031 Ryder Cup.
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Guy Kinnings at the 2024 Olympic Golf in Paris.
