Jay Monahan Is Coming Back, But Is Under Siege From His Constituents

Prominent PGA Tour players said this week that trust has been lost in the commissioner in the wake of the proposed alliance with LIV Golf's benefactor.

When I heard Jay Monahan was returning to work on Monday, my mind harkened to the movie Working Girl when Melanie Griffith, who played Tess, was starting her first day at Trask Industries and her love interest Harrison Ford packed her lunch in a metal lunch box and slipped a $10 bill in for milk money.

Tess was full of energy as she had done everything possible to rise out of the doldrums to get a white-collar job with a desk and secretary, having finally climbed the ladder to success.

It was generally a feel-good story.

For Monahan, 53, coming back to work will likely not be the same feel-good story.

As the fourth commissioner in the 55-year history of the modern PGA Tour after it broke from the PGA of America in 1968, Monahan has had a trickier tenure than any of the past three.

The COVID-19 outbreak was unprecedented in sports and the PGA Tour under Monahan’s leadership was far in front compared to the other sports and a model in dealing with disruption from the outbreak.

But as good as Monahan was in dealing with the pandemic, his efforts with LIV Golf and its benefactor were nothing short of abysmal and eventually forced the Boston native into a forced pause with an undisclosed health issue.

On Monday, Monahan returns to work from his medical absence, and he will return to a PGA Tour that may be more disheveled than when he left, with him personally besieged by members that are more interested in seeing him removed then going back to the status quo.

They see Monahan as untruthful, having lost respect and trust in him and questioning his actions in crafting an agreement with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. He's now looked upon as ineffective by the rank and file.

But maybe what’s more important is that on Wednesday at the Scottish Open, Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth and Xander Schauffele all questioned Monahan’s actions and trust in his abilities going forward.

And after carrying the water for the PGA Tour during the entire LIV Golf insurrection, Tiger Woods has been silent on the deal as he learned basically when the public learned and his involvement in the deal was non-existent.

The silence by Woods speaks volumes on both his support of the deal and Monahan as well.

But Schauffele was not hushed.

“We got a memo that he'll be back on the 17th,” Schauffele said. “If you want to call it one of the rockier times on Tour, the guy was supposed to be there for us, wasn't. Obviously, he had some health issues. I'm glad that he said he's feeling much better. But yeah, I'd say he has a lot of tough questions to answer in his return, and yeah, I don't trust people easily. He had my trust, and he has a lot less of it now. So, I don't stand alone when I say that. Yeah, he'll just have to answer our questions when he comes back.”

Players are usually a deferential lot. Questioning the hierarchy has never been part of the PGA Tour’s mantra, but the times are changing.

So, Monahan comes back with dissention in the ranks, Congress questioning what exactly the PGA Tour is doing, the Department of Justice—currently a group against any monopolistic tendencies—investigating antitrust issues with the deal and the Tour itself negotiating with a very business-savvy group as the PIF with hopes of coming to an agreement that will satisfy everyone.

All this while hoping to keep his job.

Working Girl ends with Tess smiling and talking on the phone to her good friend while sitting in her new office in a Manhattan skyscraper.

If Monahan is smiling as he returns, it will be a false smile since he enters a cauldron that is riddled with indecision, doubt, and little hope for a proper outcome.

He is on the clock starting Monday and anything is possible.