Is Jay Monahan going to step down as Commissioner of the PGA Tour? Exploring the reports and rumors
While there's no official confirmation, Jay Monahan is reportedly set to bow out as PGA Tour Commissioner after a period of seven years. His tenure has been a bit controversial in recent years.
Golf journalist Bob Ball has reported that Monahan will be relieved of PGA Tour Commissioner duties once the tour's framework agreement with PIF gets finalized. The deadline for finalizing the framework agreement is the end of the year, which will be extended if both parties agree.
On Tuesday, Ball tweeted that Monahan's time is up as PGA Tour chief, and that it's just a matter of time before the official announcement is made:
"According to sources at the highest levels of golf, he’s (Monahan) finished as PGA Tour Commissioner as soon as the Framework Agreement is executed (or not)"
Ball said that Monahan had lost the trust of stakeholders, and claimed that it's not possible for a leader to survive without trust. He added that the Tour chief had upset three significant groups amid the PGA-LIV row.
The first group is of the players who chose to join the Saudi-backed circuit. Ball said that Monahan spread the narrative that the defected players were supporting human rights violations by the Saudi Kingdom, even involving 9/11 victims in the mess.
Ball also claimed that Monahan had launched a vicious campaign against Phil Mickelson through media and PR tactics. He accused Monahan of hypocrisy, pointing out that just a year before LIV's inception, he was trying to negotiate with the Saudis to invest in the European Tour.
"But secretly, in one of the vilest and most scum-worthy ironies, Monahan did all of this when just a year earlier, he was included in a series of emails (exposed in court filings by @DesertDufferLLG) trying to get the Saudis to bail out the DP World Tour. Yes, getting investment from the very people he was now trashing."
The second group that Ball mentioned is of PGA Tour members and employees.
He said that Monahan had threatened players and that they would be subject to sanctions like monetary fines and other types of bans if they participated in LIV Golf. Further, Monahan warned them about the potential loss of Official World Golf Ranking points.
"Many PGA players gave up big paydays from LIV, and he cost them fortunes," he wrote.
He further claimed that, while engaging in these actions, Monahan himself attempted to secretly negotiate with PIF while keeping the players and employees in the dark. That reportedly resulted in both players and employees losing trust in the tour commissioner.
Many observers detected some frustration in players like Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele's press interactions after the deal announcement.
"Remember, the PGA Tour is a trade organization that’s supposed to represent those players’ best interests," Ball continued. "Employees at the Tour are disillusioned as well and morale is low. Reports say communication in the organization is dysfunctional."
As per Bob Ball, the third significant group is of broadcasters, vendors and suppliers who had contracts with the American Tour. He claimed that Monahan took advantage of the Tour's relations with them to prevent the Saudi-backed circuit from securing telecast or sponsorship deals.
Ball added that with LIV-associated players not receiving OWGR points, some lower-ranked players could break into the top-30. The situation forced broadcasters to pay higher revenue to the PGA Tour, despite the event fields not being as strong as portrayed.
"This can’t be sitting well with the networks and they are likely not happy," Ball said. "Embarrassingly, the Golf Channel has been ignoring LIV Golf and should have been reporting more robustly and airing the results and highlights of LIV but were leveraged as part of the anti-LIV PR campaign."
Ball added that if the merger were to happen, stakeholders would never trust the Tour again as long as Monahan remained at the helm. He claimed that Monahan is leading the tour only because there's a shortage of successors at the moment, and that the situation is bound to change soon.
When will the PGA Tour 2024 season start?
The PGA Tour's new season begins in January with The Sentry and Sony Open in Hawaii.
The two events will mark the start of the FedEx Cup 2024 season, where all the players with zero points will kick off their race to the FedEx Cup.