Jay Monahan Announces He Will Resume PGA Tour Commissioner Duties Following Leave of Absence
Jay Monahan is coming back to work.
The PGA Tour commissioner, who announced a leave on June 13 to deal with an undisclosed medical condition, sent a letter to the PGA Tour policy board on Friday stating that he will return on July 17.
“Thank you for your support and leadership these last few weeks,’’ Monahan wrote in the memo. “With the support of my family and thanks to world class medical care, my health has improved dramatically.
“I am eager to engage with each of you – as well as our players, partners, fans and our PGA Tour family – to address any questions and protect the game we treasure.’’
Monahan’s duties were taken over by PGA Tour chief operating officer Ron Price and president Tyler Dennis.
The leave began a week after a bombshell announcement that Monahan made along with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund, in which an agreement had been reached to partner with the DP World Tour and end the feud with LIV Golf. The PIF is the funding source for LIV Golf.
The announcement was met with shock, as no players were apparently aware that Monahan and PGA Tour policy board members Ed Hirlihy and Jimmy Dunne were negotiating with Al-Rumayyan.
The “framework agreement’’ has a long way to go before being fully executed and agreed upon, but Monahan has faced considerable criticism as he and the Tour for more than a year fought the LIV Golf League by, among other things, encouraging players to use talking points to criticize the Saudi Arabian government, its human rights record and alleged tied to the 9/11 attack.
In a conference call with reporters on June 6, Monahan acknowledged that he had to take the criticism for changing direction.
“I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,’’ Monahan said. “Anytime I said anything, I said it with the information that I had at that moment, and I said it based on someone that's trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms. But circumstances do change. I think that in looking at the big picture and looking at it this way, that's what got us to this point.’’
That same day, Monahan had a difficult meeting at the RBC Canadian Open with players.
“I would describe the meeting as intense, certainly heated,’’ he said. “This is a very complex -- obviously it's been a very dynamic and complex couple of years, and for players, I'm not surprised that -- this is an awful lot to ask them to digest, and this is a significant change for us in the direction that we were going down.
“But as I'm trying to explain and I will continue to explain as we go forward, this ultimately is a decision that I think is in the best interest of all of the members of the PGA Tour, puts us in a position of control, allows us to partner with the PIF in a constructive and productive way, to have them invest with us, again, running the PGA Tour, having these three entities under one for-profit LLC."
Under the proposed agreement, the PGA Tour as we now know it – with events such as this week’s John Deere Classic – would remain as it, operating as a non-profit 501c-6 known as PGA Tour Inc.
But a new company, for now to be called PGA Tour Enterprises, will be formed as for-profit LLC with the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV valuing their assets and setting up a to-be-determined entity that would, in theory, administer other golf events, including possible LIV Golf or some other form of it.
As part of the agreement, all litigation between the properties was dropped.
Monahan 53, has worked for the PGA Tour since 2008 and became deputy commissioner under Tim Finchem 2015. He took over as commissioner in 2017 after Finchem retired.