Africa and India may soon welcome more DP World Tour events, as title sponsor DP World aims to expand golf into new and untapped markets.
When DP World signed its landmark partnership with the European Tour group to become title sponsor of its main tour in 2022, it committed to growing the game globally.
Since then, the DP World Tour has visited Japan for the first time and returned to destinations like Thailand, Singapore and Bahrain, which had been absent from the circuit for years.
Today, golf’s global circuit lives up to its name, playing 44 tournaments across five continents.
But despite visiting 24 countries for this season’s Race to Dubai, DP World’s Group Chief Communications Officer, Daniel Van Otterdijk, is keen to cast the net wider.
One of those target regions is Africa. Although it’s the second-largest continent with 53 countries, the Wentworth-based tour only stops in three of them - South Africa, Kenya, and Mauritius.
India, the world’s most populated country, also has just one DP World Tour event each season. Van Otterdijk and DP World see an opportunity to change that.
“We're looking to continue to build, together with the European Tour group, the DP World Tour, and be in more places and spaces more often,” Van Otterdijk told Gulf News.
“In fact, this morning we were talking about the opportunity in India – that is one of the massive, untapped markets we have.
“We only have one, I would say, a medium to lower-tier event there in Delhi, and that’s it for the whole country. When you consider there’s 1.4 billion there, that's an enormous opportunity to look at next.
“I think for us, Africa as well. We’ve seen, in the past few years, markets opening up in Rwanda, for example. There are some good golf courses there. Also, Senegal and Angola now - it’s not just South Africa and Kenya that we traditionally learn about.
“So, I think that the opportunity to take off to other places and spaces where it hasn't been, rather than just the traditional places, which are the North America corridor and Asia, is something we’re looking to do next.”
With the DP World Tour’s 2025 schedule still under wraps, could we soon see these destinations added to its ever-expanding global lineup?
“I wouldn't want to be held accountable for that!” he says.
“Look, these things always take time, right? To have a major tournament in India takes a lot of organising - you need a lot of different stakeholders, authorities, sponsors, and broadcasters on board to make it happen. But it can happen.
“We think we'll see that happening in the next two or three years for sure. And certainly, in places like Africa - I don't mean South Africa or Kenya - but outside of those two nations.
“We've actually had sports ministers from countries ring us and say, ‘We’d love for you to bring a tournament here.’
“There are opportunities aplenty - it’s about taking those.”
