‘Candid and strong views’ - why 2025 DP World Tour schedule could be tweaked

Underlining its status as a global tour, this season’s schedule was split into three separate phases in a move aimed at ensuring that “every week counts”.

Phase one was divided into five so-called ‘swings’ around the world - an Opening Swing, International Swing, Asian Swing, European Swing and Closing Swing.

The season has now entered ‘The Back 9’, with players currently battling to either make the new Play-Offs - a double-header in the Middle East in November - or finish in the top 114 in the Race to Dubai Rankings to hang on to their cards for next year.

“It's fascinating,” said Kinnings in reply to being asked how the new-look schedule has been greeted by the tour’s members. “I've always said, if I can do it on Tuesday-Wednesday, I'll find an hour to do breakfast or dinner and sit and listen to groups.

“The last one I did at The Belfry (venue for the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo) was two-and-a-half hours. I had to stop them. I said surely you have to go and practise or something.

“There's no lack of opinions and views, and some are very strong. I listen to them and they are very candid with their thoughts, and that's helpful. There are those that I think really like what we've done this year and we kind of need to get to the end of it to see if it worked because it's the first time we have done ‘The Back Nine’. We need to see how it all works out.”

Speaking to a small group of golf writers during last week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, Kinnings, who was Colin Montgomerie’s long-time manager at IMG before joining the tour, added; “I think there have been strong things about focusing on the narrative of our global swings because it accentuates what we are.

“I keep reminding people when you hear talk about needing to take the game internationally that we know what we're doing. We can put on great events. We put on good value. We did Rome (for last year’s Ryder Cup). It wasn't a walk in the park and pretty good in the end.

“You know, we can do that. By playing in international swings, you can talk about different countries, different cultures, whatever else, which is so important. The opportunity here for the game is to go truly international.

“So I think people have liked that. There are things you've always got to tweak. People have said there are certain aspects they didn't quite like, things they would like to change, look at the categories, how they get into events, should there be more events, fewer.

“I will listen to all of those guys, see how ‘The Back Nine’ works, see how the Play-Offs work, whatever else, and, if we need to adapt, we'll adapt.”

The first few events on the 2025 schedule have already been confirmed, with the BMW Australian PGA Championship and ISPS Handa Australian Open getting things underway at the end of November before the Nedbank Golf Challenge, Alfred Dunhill Championship and AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open also take place before the end of the calendar year.

“We would love to get the new '25 schedule out this month, but it may well leak into October,” added Kinnings. “I don't like TBAs and we had three or four we need to finalise. Actually, we had some really good news the last couple of days.”

Referring to the ongoing talks around a Framework Agreement signed by the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), he said: “I don't think anyone should be expecting the '25 global schedule to look very different from '24. My hope is that '26 will look different from that.”