The world needs to know this, I feel. How many pairs of glasses do you own? And how many colours are involved?

The challenge is that my prescription changed last year. I am now replenishing. But I am looking forward to understanding and seeing what our new corporate partner, “Maui Jim” has to offer. All I can say is that I like to have more than 10 pairs on the go at any one time (laughs).

Do you get appearance money?

(laughs) Unfortunately, I don’t. But I am prepared to be an ambassador for Maui Jim. Not a paid ambassador though.

Good answer.

Good? That’s a great answer (laughs).

I spoke with swing coach Denis Pugh recently. He says you are the fastest golfer on the planet. Fair comment?

Me? The most outrageous change that would have the biggest effect on the amateur game is if we limited everyone to two practice swings. Think about it. We talk about slow play a lot. I was asked the other day when I had last watched a college tournament.

I hear they are brutal.

They say it is a painful watch. But in order to make a dramatic change to pace of play we have to change the dialogue. For us at the European Tour, there is now slow play and slow players. I do believe that, in the professional game, as technology advances, the size of our “read” is the biggest challenge.

I had this conversation with The Golf Channel people. Consumers now want to watch what they want, when they want and how they want. They expect to see everything. And right now they can’t. But eventually people will want to have the option of watching every single shot hit by every single player.

And choose the player they want to watch?

Correct. As our real-time data and gaming becomes more sophisticated – next year we are going to unleash 75 different data points that will allow you to follow and game on any player – that is going to be necessary. So it will happen. And at that point measuring slow play will become more scientific and sophisticated.

 However, having said that, something drastic and dramatic needs to happen at the amateur level. It does. And the best notion I’ve had is to limit practice swings. Timing people exactly is too difficult. It’s just a thought. But to make massive change, you need a drastic idea. You can monitor practice swings more exactly than you do pre-shot routines etc.

Pelley doesn’t have a slow-play problem. The CEO has been described by Denis Pugh as the fastest golfer on the planet. PHOTO: Getty Images.

You’ve been in your job a wee while now. How are you doing? How would you rate your performance? And what you have achieved?

We’ve made some tremendous strides. We have certainly tried to look at the golf industry from a different perspective. Our commitment to innovation. Our commitment to inclusivity. I’m proud of those. I’m energised by the golfers with disabilities we had playing at the recent DP World Tour Championship. They are inspiring.

We still have a lot of work to do. The challenge for golf is still that the infrastructure is somewhat fractured. There are so many governing bodies. So it is difficult for them all to align ourselves to one specific objective, say, how we grow the game. And how we celebrate our game. Our game has so much to offer. It is so unique in so many ways. But collectively I don’t think we’ve done a great job of emphasising that enough.

Why is that? Too many voices?

We are starting to work more closely together with the PGA Tour and the four majors. We all have the same goal. But we all have day jobs as well. So it becomes very time-consuming to have another level of business, especially when we are all living in different parts of the world. That’s the challenge for our sport.

Is that why we haven’t seen a World Tour yet?

I believe we will see a World Tour. Eventually. Again, it is complex because you are dealing with member’s organisations. If all we were doing is sitting around developing a strategy for a World Tour, it would happen relatively quickly, which is not to say it would be easy to create in a world full of already established global businesses.

I’m not sure it is impossible to keep everyone happy, But in order to create a World Tour everyone would have to be pulling on the same rope. And you have to have a lot of time to execute it. There are, for example, so many contracts already in place. Perhaps if we dedicated 10-15 people full-time to it, we could get it done. It isn’t imminent though. But long-term I feel sure it will happen.

How is your current relationship with the PGA Tour?

I have so much respect for Jay Monahan. I think he is a wonderful, quality guy. And a super leader. Smart.

But that’s Monahan. What about your relationship with the Tour?

Well, he is the commissioner. And our relationship is strong. It is very transparent. They are growing like we are. They have the luxury of being at the heart of the biggest golf industry in the world. They have great support from corporate America. If you look back at what Deane Beman did, then Tim Finchem and now Jay, our relationship with them has only gotten closer. And it will get closer.

That doesn’t mean that a World Tour is imminent though. That means we are working closer together to figure out things like slow play. Our biggest competitors are not the other Tours but the other sports. They are the ones taking viewing time away from us.

Every so often we journalists hear rumours of mergers between the European Tour and the PGA Tour. Anything to report on that front?

You never say never.

Have there been discussions?

There have been discussions going back 15-20 years. But that is all they have been. We don’t necessarily talk “merger.” We talk about strategic alliances and how we can work more closely together. We talk about broadcast deals. A merger would be an enormous undertaking.

Pelley and Race to Dubai winner Jon Rahm inspect the names before him on the trophy. PHOTO: Getty Images.

Switching gears, is there anything you can do to get Rory McIlroy playing more in Europe?

You have to understand that, at Rory’s level, they are all world-class global players. And so they have multiple choices about where to play. If I was to spend time simply trying to get all the top players to tee-up in all the tournaments, all I would be doing is spending a lot of time with a lot of chest pain. I’d also have a lot of anxiety.

It is an unrealistic expectation to believe you are ever going to have everybody in an event. Based on the golfing infrastructure as it is right now. There are less than 10 “must play” tournaments annually. In the world.

So there is nothing you can do? Appeal to his good nature? Pay him more money?

There are 35 tournaments in the world where the purse is $7million or more. There are multiple choices. There are a number of high-level events in the US starting with the three majors. I honestly believe this. Any time Rory plays, the golf tournament is changed. And any time he plays in Europe, we celebrate.

The Rolex events all offer at least $7m. Why then do you still have to pay appearance fees to get guys to come and play in them?

We don’t pay appearance fees in Rolex Series events. Look at, say, the BMW PGA Championship, the Scottish Open and the Irish Open. There are no appearance fees.

No one gets paid? So Justin Rose wasn’t paid to play in the Turkish Airlines Open?

I said Ireland, Scotland and the BMW. Turkey was a promoter event through International Sports Management. We don’t get involved in how they get the top players there. Again, the top players have so many choices about where to play, which is why appearance fees are paid in many of those 35 events boasting at least $7million in prizemoney.

Would it have been a pointless gesture for you to say to Rolex, let’s make your purses $5m and take the excess money to Rory and see if we can get him to play in, say, six of the Rolex Series events?

As a member’s organisation, our focus is the entire membership. We believe that the Rolex Series has been a game-changer for us. No question. There is not an interview that goes by where I am not asked about it. Players who win events now talk about how they will now get into Rolex events. It has become part of the global vernacular.

It has been monumentally successful and defines what our Tour is. You have more of an obsession with top player participation than I do. I celebrate who plays in our events. And I recognise that any event is enhanced by top player participation. But it is not the only thing that defines a great tournament. It is the crowd. It is the quality of the golf course. It is the entertainment factor. There are a lot of variables.

Look at the Irish Open this year. Padraig Harrington played and he attracted huge crowds at a time when he wasn’t ranked inside the World’s Top-100. Then there is the Spanish Open. One of the highlights of the year for me was seeing a 150-yard long line of kids and adults waiting for Jon Rahm’s autograph. It was a captivating moment. The field that week contained Jon, Sergio Garcia and Rafa Cabrera-Bello. So the people came.

Would we like to have every top player in every single tournament? That’s unrealistic. There are over 100 events going on around the world every year. So it can’t happen, the way golf is currently set up.

So every tournament has a different wish-list?

One of the massive advantages that we have is the national Opens. But the key to those are the national heroes. We saw that with Padraig in Ireland. We saw it in Spain. And we saw it in Italy when Francesco Molinari played for the first time since the Open. It was staggering at all three.

I was chatting to Victor Perez’s agent yesterday. They were overwhelmed at the French Open. And he is just at the start of his career. And I can say the same about Robert MacIntyre, who is a superstar in the making for Scotland. He has it all. He’s left-handed. He hits it far. And he is one of the nicest, most humble, most down-to-earth individuals you could ever find.

One of the greatest strengths we have is our diversity. And a big part of that is our national Opens.

Which is the perfect lead into my next question: Why is the Australian Open not a part of the European Tour?

We would love to be involved. And we have tried to be involved. But right now the tournament is run by the management company, Lagardere. They do not see the value of the European Tour being involved. If they did, we would be more than happy to have such a great and historic event on our calendar. We have tried.

“The Australian Open is run by the management company, Lagardere. They do not see the value of the European Tour being involved.” – Keith Pelley

What is Lagardere’s argument or problem?

You would have to ask them. But we would love to be part of it. Love to. We really would. We think it would be a great addition to our Tour, just as the Australian PGA Championship is.

If and when that happens, would you like to see a run of Australian events in, say, February, a month that is somewhat up for grabs?

Australia is a great golfing country. And the fans are just as great. But what would be important for us going there would be to have multiple events in a row. It is challenging geographically. And it has been challenging finding global partners that want to invest in those events. That’s why the Open and the PGA would be wonderful back-to-back. Again, we would love to be part of that.

What happened to the Perth World Super-6s?

Government support dried up. Tourism WA pulled out, which was a shame and a disappointment. It was a good event. We need strong partners and strong government support to make things happen though.

What do you learn from an experience like that?

It’s just common business. We had several conversations and they made the decisions they made. There is nothing specific to be learned from that. They did what they felt was right for them.

Rory has back-tracked a bit from what he said at the Dunhill Links Championship. But the question remains: are European Tour course set-ups generally too easy? Are you happy with the level of winning scores?

It is something we talk about with the tournament committee. We’re comfortable with the quality of our courses. We are always looking to improve though. It can be tough when you play in so many different countries and on so many different grasses. But I can say – and I know the players concur – the courses are getting better every year. That’s important for us.

Define ‘better’ in terms of the winning scores? Is there any temptation to make things more difficult?

We can set-up a course to be very difficult. Then have no wind and perfect weather. You can also set-up a course to be ‘easy’, and the weather is awful. So winning scores is not something we spend a lot of time on. There are so many variables. What we do spend time on is the quality of the courses.