Exclusive:Golf chief opens up on new wave of European stars and talks of card category headache

Wearing his trademark pink tie, Guy Kinnings had just spent around four hours on the first tee at Club de Golf Alcanada in Port d’Alcudia greeting players before they headed out in the final round of the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A.

For many of the 46 players in the field, it was probably their first official meeting with the European Tour Group’s CEO since he succeeded Keith Pelley in April, but Kinnings, the man who managed Colin Montgomerie for a lengthy spell when he worked for IMG, not only knew lots of faces but also their stories so far in golf.

European Tour Group CEO Guy Kinnings, right, shares a laugh with Spanish legend Angel Gallardo during the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A | Octavio Passos/Getty Images

Since around the midway point of the Challenge Tour season, the DP World Tour’s player liaison division, led by former card holder himself Stuart Cage, had been getting to know the golfers who looked likely at that stage to be making the step up to the main tour for the 2025 campaign and Kinnings was also keeping a close eye on who, in turn, could be the new wave of stars in the European game.

For instance, the likes of Dane Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, a three-time winner on the second-tier circuit this year, and Angel Ayora, a 20-year-old who is being managed by Javier Ballesteros, Seve’s son, as he bids to become the game’s latest Spanish sensation.

“Truth be told, the first reason you’ve got to know them is because they have played so well on the Challenge Tour and you’ve got some big characters and colourful characters who are going to add to the main tour and, for us, building stories around your rising stars, local heroes and superstars is massively important,” Kinnings told The Scotsman in Mallorca.

“That’s never been more important, in fact, and our content team does a brilliant job in that respect by allowing us to get to know the guys by sharing stories about them before they arrive on the main tour. In some cases - take Rasmus, for instance, after his three wins - it’s a ready-made story because someone like him could be playing in Ryder Cups because they are coming off the Challenge Tour as the finished article.”

As evidenced by the fact that 15 of the 20 Challenge Tour graduates and 16 out of 21 if you add in another player who made the jump off the Race to Dubai points list 12 months ago retained DP World Tour cards for the 2025 campaign. Three of those players, one being a rejuvenated Matteo Manassero, recorded wins on the top tour this year and two are on course to secure PGA Tour playing rights as well next year.

“That is an extraordinary stat,” observed Kinnings of the card retention this time around. “You’ve got to find different pathways and we find every pathway we can to give people an opportunity, and the quality of the Challenge Tour and how it is being run by Jamie Hodges with an increased number of tournaments and increased number of quality events is preparing the players really well for the DP World Tour. 

Guy Kinnings and Jamie Hodges, Head of Challenge Tour, flank Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final winner Kristoffer Reitan and Road to Mallorca No 1 Rasmus Neergaard Petersen | Octavio Passos/Getty Images

“It is tough out there and tough to win, but the experience they have picked up by the time they reach the DP World Tour, I think anyway, is more relevant than it has ever been. Just look at the graduates from the Challenge Tour, there’s been some brilliant players and, more than ever, I think they are coming out ready for tour life.”

Won by Kristoffer Reitan, the Norwegian jumped 29 spots into a card-securing position on Sunday, last week’s season finale took centre stage due to a blank week on the DP World Tour schedule between the end of ‘The Back 9’ and the two Play-Off events now set to take place over the next fortnight in the Middle East.

Winners in ‘The Back 9’ swing included a fairytale triumph for home player Angel Hidalgo in the acciona Open de España, Tyrrell Hatton recording a historic third Dunhill Links triumph and Frenchman Julien Guerrier coming out on top in a marathon play-off at Sotogrande to land his breakthrough victory in the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucia Masters. In addition, Marco Penge, last year’s Challenge Tour No 1, retained his seat at the top table next season after making a birdie at the last hole to make the cut in the Genesis Championship in Korea.

“‘The Back 9’ has been great for us,” said Kinnings of the DP World Tour being in the spotlight for a few months after the end of the PGA Tour FedEx Cup Play-Offs. “We wanted to make a statement by having nine great events in a row and we pulled it off (increased spectator attendance and TV viewership has just been announced), helped admittedly by the fact we were fortunate as we had some brilliant finishes, including local heroes well against international stars. 

“But the fact we had all that then a blank week allowed the Challenge Tour Grand Final have a real focus on it before we go into the Play-Offs and it was great that the players walked on to the first tee in Mallorca feeling as though it was a full tour event because that’s what it deserves to be.”

Starting on Friday at Infinitum Golf in Tarragona, the DP World Tour Qualifying School will offer another pathway for players but with only the top 20 and ties as opposed to the top 25 and ties on this occasion earning that particular category, which saw only six players out of 33 from last year retaining a full-event status for 2025.

Guy Kinnings attended the final day of the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A in Mallorca | Octavio Passos/Getty Images

“It’s something you have to have a look at every year because, first and foremost, you want to reward the Challenge Tour but, equally, if you get a card at Q-School, you are rightly feeling that you are going to be able to play in as many events as you can and, for sure, it has been hard this year in that respect,” said Kinnings, who signed Thomas Bjorn as an IMG client soon after the Dane topped the Challenge Tour Order of Merit in 1995.

“We have noticed that and we have debated it at great length at tournament committee meetings this year and there will probably be some tweaking around the categories to try and give everyone a chance. But it is tough as we all know how difficult it is out there to be on tour.

“It is physically draining, hence why we had the Training & Recovery Unit at the Grand Final for the first time, and it is mentally challenging. It has not just suddenly become that way of course, as it has always been that way, but there is more of a recognition now and we have recognised it as you have to get that balance between trying to get as many playing opportunities as you can but also try to deliver as many elevated events and improved events as you can.

“It is also not entirely easy commercially in the market place and we are extremely lucky to have amazing support from our partners, but it can’t be taken for granted as you have to make sure you are delivering the product and, though I am biased, I think it has been a really strong year for us. It was just brilliant, for example, what we saw with Bob MacIntyre winning the Genesis Scottish Open, what it meant for him and the reaction from the fans - that was just fantastic!”

A new card category, which sits between the Challenge Tour one and the Qualifying School one, for players finishing outside the top 125 on the PGA Tour points list was introduced this year, with mainly Europeans - the likes of Austrian Matthias Schwab and Swede Jonas Blixt, for instance - using that at different times over the course of the campaign but no-one really taking advantage of it.

“I don’t think it had any real impact,” admitted Kinnings. “I don’t think it has had a huge effect, but, at the same time, the announcement last week by the PAC (the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council is looking at sweeping changes, including fewer cards and smaller field sizes) could lead to players maybe starting to look differently about what is the best way for them to try to get a card and it doesn’t matter where that is. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if more Americans started to look at the DP World Tour. If you look at the pathway through from the Challenge Tour to the DP World Tour, it is a very clear route and it has worked very well. But we just have to monitor that and see what happens.”

Spaniard Angel Hidalgo celebrates winning the acconia Open de España presented by Madrid at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid in September | Getty Images

Comprising 29 events, the 2024 Challenge Tour visited 19 different countries, with Danes, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Swedes, Finns, South Africans, Englishmen, an Irishman, German and the aforementioned Norwegian making up the graduates this time around.

“That’s our USP,” said a smiling Kinnings, having taken off his jacket in the Spanish sunshine for our chat but not being tempted to loosen that trademark tie. “If you look at it, it makes you realise we really are the global tour. That’s what we have done for 50 years. We’ve played in every corner of the world and developed relationships, worked with different cultures and the tour has evolved so we play in and become the root for all the best international talent.

“Whenever people say ‘you are a feeder tour’, I reply ‘no, we are not’. Have a look at what this tour is with unbelievable national Opens with so much history . If part of it is to feed talent through, then absolutely because it allows the best talent in the world to come through in the game and that will always be a result.

“You see the winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, Ding Wenyi, taking up his card on the Challenge Tour and that’s because people see the benefit of that being a pathway and that, in turn, should improve the quality of the golf and the golfers on what is the global tour. Right now, that’s what I want us to look like and that’s what we did look like on ‘The Back 9’, which produced fantastic tournaments around the world with real drama.”