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Perhaps the reason the Premier Golf League inspires such strong opinions among professional golfers is because it ushers in a common enemy.
That’s what Eddie Pepperell suggested Tuesday on his blog “Who says Golf is everything?” in a post titled, “A Common Enemy.”
Pepperell, 29, stated he thinks the Premier Golf League is a “pretty terrible idea” that would “rupture many of the traditions of golf.” However, he said the proposed league which could rival the PGA and European Tours does pose a much needed, unifying element: a threat.
“Golf, like sport in general, currently suffers from not having enough rivalries, or indeed any. … It’s irrational, yet commonplace,” Pepperell wrote. “It’s also natural, and we seemingly can’t get enough of it. What we need, is a War. Or a pandemic to bring us together. Or, if you’re the PGA Tour and the European Tour, we need the serious prospect of the Premier Golf League.”
Pepperell thinks the Premier Golf League is changing thinking around professional tours, for better or worse.
Referencing a previous blog post in which he wrote he was against the PGA and European Tours merging to create a World Tour, Pepperell said the prospect of the Premier Golf League makes the World Tour idea more preferable — to himself at least.
“Thinking conspiratorially for a second, I wonder if someone has plotted this to have the effect of creating a common enemy, as to make the chances of a World Tour more likely?” he wrote. “Thinking slightly more realistically, I doubt that’s the case and instead we just have an assortment of individuals, trying to see a gap in a market and exploit it with (currently) porous Saudi money and investment from a Japanese bank with a recent history of very poor investments. Either way, it’s worked in terms of changing the way I see something I previously disliked; a World Tour.”
More Pepperell’s complete entry can be read on his blog, “Who says Golf is everything?”
Pepperell, who last played at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and finished T-11, wrote he was on his way to the Qatar Masters, despite his concerns of being quarantined abroad or unable to travel due to the coronavirus. The 29-year-old said he withdrew from the Oman Open “over fears of getting stuck abroad” but decided to travel to Qatar to help him qualify for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
“It’s a risk I felt worth taking,” he wrote. “In preparation for a potential lockdown I did book myself into the Four Seasons mind, so if I do get locked down, don’t feel too sorry for me.”
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