Paul Dunkley: The billionaire fixer and Ian Poulter ally who is key to LIV Golf revolution – GETTY IMAGES From the Eternal City to the bottomless pit.Henrik Stenson’s decision to abandon the Ryder Cup captaincy in Rome to sign up to the Saudi rebel circuit with apparently limitless coffers continues to cause consternation throughout the game with focus increasingly falling on the boutique English agency which brokered the Swede’s £40 million deal.
CM Management, with offices registered in Banbury, in Oxfordshire, represents five players who have joined the LIV Golf Invitational Series and who will be playing in the third £20 million event at Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey, which begins on Friday.They include Ryder Cup royalty, blue-and-goldbloods who before this saga were key in Europe’s leadership succession plan.
Lee Westwood, 49, was the overwhelming favourite to succeed Padraig Harrington before taking his hat out of the ring in December.
Ian Poulter, 46, was earmarked to take the role in the 2025 tussle, a New York encounter predicted to be fiery and for which he appeared perfect.
And then there was Stenson, who signed a contract stipulating he would not play on a rival tour, but who was sacked on Wednesday after 127 days.
CM’s LIV quintet are completed by Sam Horsfield, the brilliant 25-year-old prospect from Manchester with three Tour victories, and Laurie Canter, the 32-year-old from Bath who has risen up the rankings in the past 30 months.
Between them, this group are estimated to have received combined signing-on fees of £70-80 million and there is inevitable speculation in the locker room about the commission earned by CM Management.
Team Majesticks Laurie Canter, Ian Poulter, Sam Horsfield and Lee Westwood at the Centurion Club – PA “In usual circumstances the agency would take 15 to 20 per cent of appearance fees, but surely that cannot be the case here as it would mean they have raked in eight figures in the space of a few months,” an agent told Telegraph Sport.
“The consensus is they must be on something like 5 per cent of the joining fee and a percentage of the on-course earnings, which as first place is $4 million and last place is $120,000, would also be a pretty sum.But they won’t be getting much commission from normal sponsorship, because sponsors are walking away from the LIV players, although Poulter has got a crypto-currency exchange on board.”
Story continues Poulter donned the garish OKX-branded outfit at last week’s Open Championship, with the trading platform apparently embracing the golfer’s defection, stating in a press release: “Both golf and the financial markets are currently undergoing significant disruption, with traditional formats and methods being challenged by new entrants.”
At St Andrews, the “disruption” meant Poulter was booed on the first tee – previously unimaginable at the “Home of Golf” – as he was targeted as the LIV player who dared take to court the Tour on which he has played for almost 25 years.
Poulter, 46, won an injunction to overturn the ban on him playing in the Scottish Open, the week before the Open, a move that was even criticised by his friend and former Ryder Cup partner, Rory McIlroy.
However, it was not just the player who was depicted as the arch rebel.
“His agency obviously advises him through their legal representatives and so on,” the agent said.“And there were eyebrows raised, not least because CM’s managing director worked on the Tour until late last year.”
Ollie Banks was head of player strategy and development on the DP World Tour, having been promoted from account executive by chief executive Keith Pelley in 2018.
In September, Banks informed the Tour he was leaving, eventually departing after the season-ender in November.
A well-known figure in the industry who had previously worked at IMG under Guy Kinnings, now, ironically, the Tour’s Ryder Cup director, the Londoner is married to Cara Banks, the presenter on the Golf Channel and sometimes Sky Sports.
“It obviously doesn’t sit well with the Tour because of the knowledge Ollie has,” an insider said.“But there was nothing in his contract to stop him jumping, without going on gardening leave.”
It is understood that the Tour is planning to insert non-compete clauses into future contracts.
Banks was lured to CM by the Dunkley family who, together with Poulter’s long-term caddie and confidante Terry Mundy, are the significant shareholders in the agency, The relationship of Paul Dunkley and Poulter is key in this tale, as the much-lauded and ever-approachable businessman helped guide the young wannabe who worked in a pro shop selling Mars bars into the decorated multi-millionaire now feasting in golf’s biggest ever tuck shop.
England’s Ian Poulter (right) and caddie Terry Mundy on the 2nd fairway during day three of The Open – PA The odd couple met in the late 1990s at Leighton Buzzard Golf Club, where Poulter was an assistant pro.
As the owner of Camden Motors (where the CM comes from), Dunkley agreed to help finance the then 24-year-old in his first year on Tour.The relationship has strengthened and is as much personal as it is formal.Dunkley’s success was not based on golf but on the acquisition, growth and sale of a number of businesses with a combined turnover exceeding £2 billion.
At Camden Ventures, the 63-year-old works with sons Jonathan and James and they have a large portfolio of companies ranging from housebuilding to a stud farm, to an art dealership, to capital finance, to Over The Spoon, an outlet making plant-based desserts.
Despite the family’s connections to the sport, golf management was only a part of the empire but there can be no doubt that in the past few years, and since the Saudi vision fronted by Greg Norman has graduated into reality, it has become a more central component in the Dunkley dynasty.
Horsfield and Stenson have been with CM since its previous incarnation as Icon Sports – sold to IMG for £6 million seven years ago with James as player agent and Dunkley snr as partner – but Westwood and Canter have linked up only in the past few years.
“It’s easy and overly-emotional to say they have decimated Europe’s Ryder Cup ranks,” another agent says.“And you don’t have to be Einstein to understand how the channels of communication between Stenson and LIV were kept open.But they are not the only agency making rich harvest out of all this.Look at GSE.
They are like a conveyor belt for LIV and must have a direct debit set up from Riyadh.”
The New York- based GSE Worldwide represents Bryson DeChambeau, Louis Oosthuizen, Abraham Ancer, Branden Grace, Jason Kokrak, Carlos Ortiz, Eugenio Chacarra and another two Ryder Cup heroes in Sergio Garcia and Paul Casey.
Between GSE and CM, they will boast almost a third of the 48-man field, but being so well LIV staffed could have its issues for agencies, particularly because of the team component in the series.Westwood captains a four-man team who, in the opening two events, have also comprised Poulter, Horsfield and Canter.
“It looks like Laurie has been ditched from the Majesticks team to make way for Henrik,” the first agent said.“How does CM square that up with him? That’s what happens when you have all your rebels in one basket.”.