Rolex Effect? European Tour On Ranking Points Streak

Alex Miceli at MorningRead.com suggests we're seeing the first sign of success for European Tour Chief Keith Pelley's Rolex Series, with the three lead-up events to The Open offering more world ranking points than their PGA Tour counterparts.

Miceli writes:

Not since 2010, when the European Tour’s BMW International Open offered the same ranking points as the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour, followed by France and Scotland outpointing AT&T National and John Deere, has Europe proved to be a better draw than America.

The Rolex Series, which consists of eight lucrative events offering purses of at least $7 million throughout the European Tour season, has allowed Keith Pelley, the tour’s chief executive officer, to create an environment in which European players want to return home to compete.

“There's no question Rolex has come in and has allowed us to elevate the tournaments,” Pelley said of the Swiss watchmaker’s sponsorship. “As the title partner of the Rolex Series, they believed in the vision … but what we have invested in the infrastructure to make it a much stronger and a better tournament.” 

Here were the points breakdown on fields for those events:

HNA Open De France 270 vs Quickens Loans National 229
Dubai Duty Free Irish Open 288 vs Greenbrier Classic 174
AAM Scottish Open 342 vs  John Deere Classic 140

In another nice sign for the tour's ability to intrigue players to tee it up more often, Pat Perez has joined the tour after rising to 42nd in the world ranking, joining Kevin Na and Japan’s Hideto Tanihara in taking up similar affiliate memberships with the European Tour this season.

Perez said: “It’s probably the first time I have been in a position to do become a European Tour member in my career. I’ve always stayed in the US. So I figured, after I won and got to the top 50 in the world, I might try and travel a bit and see some new parts of the world and play against other great players. I wanted to play the European Tour and become more of a global player.

“I am going to try and broaden my horizons, go to places such as Dubai and Malaysia, and see where I fall."