Collaboration In A Time Of Pandemic: European Tour Chief Is The Lone Dissenting Vote In Ranking Restart

On this week’s McKellar golf podcast, European Tour Chief Keith Pelley talked about the remarkable and unprecedented levels of collaboration between his circuit and others in these trying times.

Yet as John Huggan reports, Pelley issued a memo to players suggesting he voted against the proposed (and approved) structure of the Official World Golf Ranking’s restart next week at Colonial as his tour remains shut down by the global pandemic.

Pelley supported a start, but offered an unsuccessful counter-proposal to protect his Tour.

“We agreed with the proposal that the ranking should restart alongside the resumption of the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour next week on the understanding that dispensation was made for the European Tour and the Challenge Tour—and indeed many other tours around the world—whose players will be disadvantaged by not being able to play at this time,” Pelley wrote in the memo. “Our proposal to correct this imbalance was either freezing the current average points of all European Tour members unable to play tournament golf until we restart our season or increasing the overall OWGR points available at our tournaments when we do restart.

“Without either of those adjustments, the consequences are negative for the majority of our membership, who will lose points through no fault of their own, when they are unable to play.”

Both proposals, however, were rejected, according to Pelley. And, as a result, he voted against the ranking restart proposal. According to his memo, his was the only dissenting voice.

As a result of the OWGR’s vote, Pelley has frozen the Ryder Cup world points list for selecting the European team until play resumes in Europe.

Some players spoke out on social media about the OWGR’s action.