George O’Grady is to stand down as the chief executive of the European Tour. O’Grady, who has been in office since 2005, has been a notably peripheral figure in public recently, including during Europe’s comprehensive Ryder Cup win over the USA in September.
The Guardian can reveal he has decided that both he and the Tour are in need of a fresh start, with a formal announcement thought to have been scheduled for the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai this month. The European Tour refused to comment on Tuesday but may be forced to issue clarification before this week is out. The Singapore-born O’Grady is here for the WGC-HSBC Champions event, which gets under way on Thursday.
Given he is 65, O’Grady’s departure may not be classed as a major surprise in some quarters, despite the advanced years of many golf administrators. Yet it had been a closely guarded secret among senior figures at the European Tour for a number of weeks. O’Grady leads a staff of 155 at Wentworth, where the European Tour is based.
Speculation will begin immediately as to where the Tour will turn for his replacement. The early suggestions are of an external appointment, and the desire to develop markets in Asia may have a bearing on the recruitment process.
Finding a successor will be the first key task for David Williams, a commercial expert who was appointed as the European Tour’s chairman last December. Williams is on record as saying: “In particular I’ll be looking to ensure the Tour is structured in a way which enables it to further increase its expansion and appeal across the globe as well as working with the players and our business partners to promote long-term sustainable growth.”
O’Grady leaves with the business in generally good health, despite constant comparisons with the highly lucrative PGA Tour in the United States.
For the first time in living memory the financial riches from the Ryder Cup, at Gleneagles in late September, were not necessary to keep the European Tour on a strong financial footing. The European Tour’s Final Series, which is in its second year, sees leading players compete for a combined $30m over four European Tour-sanctioned events.
A multimillion-pound contract with Rolex was confirmed in Dubai a year ago and was seen as an endorsement of O’Grady’s ability to retain and attract blue-chip sponsors. He has been a generally popular leader.
However, there have been negative elements to O’Grady’s stewardship, mainly due to the economic downturn. The European Tour has lost key events in Spain over a lack of sponsors, and Volvo announced it has ended its sponsorship of the World Match Play Championship after last month’s playing of the event at the London Club.
During the inaugural playing of the Final Series a year ago, a number of players complained about scheduling issues, with O’Grady forced to defend his Tour’s policy.
“The top players are allowed to have views on social media,” he said. “They have views and it is individual. Individual player managers have views too, individual promoters and all that sort of stuff, but they can change with the wind. They can have views without the responsibility to carry them off. Look at our record, look at what we have delivered through this time and decide – they all talk about what they could have done.”
O’Grady was also dragged into the controversy surrounding Sergio García’s “fried chicken” jibe towards Tiger Woods before the 2013 PGA Championship at Wentworth. A day after the García remark, he pointed towards the Spaniard’s “coloured athlete” friends in what proved to be an ill-fated attempt to defuse the row during a live television interview.
O’Grady is known to have been hurt by the fallout from that incident. He described it as “very sobering”.
Speaking last Christmas, O’Grady expanded on what he hoped would be his professional legacy. “I could leave now and the Tour would be in a phenomenally successful position,” he said. “Golf is in the Olympics, we have got big broadcast contracts in place and we have really big sponsors coming on board. We have chief executives and prime ministers individually offering their support and great support too from all the other tours outside America who want to work with the European Tour. If you can’t be confident with the structure we have in place you’ll never be confident at all.”
