[PHOTO: Kate McShane]
Jay Monahan met with the media on Tuesday at Bay Hill Club to amplify the PGA Tour’s Fan Forward Initiative and extol the virtues of its latest move – a reduction in commercial time at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational that will be “repurposed” for more live golf that will focus on player-caddie interaction on NBC/Golf Channel broadcasts.
The PGA Tour commissioner would have preferred to spend all of his 25-minute chat on such topics, but Monahan found himself spending considerable time on the ongoing negotiations between the tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which backs the rival LIV Golf League. Questions were inevitable. The answers provided little illumination.
Despite the intervention of US president Donald Trump in two meetings on February 4 and February 20 at the White House, it appears that the two sides are no closer to reunifying the game. Unless, that is, you count the appearance of former LIV golfer Laurie Canter in next week’s Players Championship. The Englishman qualified after finishing second at the South African Open to move into the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Ranked 42nd, Canter is eligible because he was never a tour member, is now on the DP World Tour, and hasn’t competed in a LIV event in more than a year.
That’s about all the progress we’ll see on the reunification front for the time being. Monahan said not to expect anything to change when the tour returns to TPC Sawgrass for its flagship event next week. And after that, well, talks have been ongoing since June 2023 without a resolution.
“We’re doing everything we can to reunify the game,” Monahan said, countering the notion that negotiations have cooled coming out of the latest White House meeting that included Adam Scott and Tiger Woods. “I think anything I’ve said is consistent with what should be said when you’re in the middle of a complex discussion to try and unify the game. It doesn’t speak to my confidence level, it speaks to the moment. I view that meeting as a huge step, and so I look at that very positive.”
In referring to PGA Tour members, Monahan said that “not everybody is going to be happy” about bringing LIV golfers back into the fold. “I’m hopeful that when you look at what we’re trying to accomplish, what that means for the PGA Tour, what that means for the game on a long-term basis, that we will solve for that in the most effective and prudent way we possibly can,” he said.
Fans, Monahan added, were largely in favour. “Seventy percent of our fans tell us that they’d like to see [the game] reunified versus about 30 percent who’d like to see an investment [in the tour from PIF],” he said. “So that’s the core foundation to why we’re spending the amount of time trying to accomplish that and at that same time responding to fans and doing everything we can to strengthen fan engagement, strengthen our schedule.”
Other subjects touched upon include the potential for expansion of TGL as it nears completion of its first season and the future of the Tour Championship.
On the TGL front, expansion could mean adding more teams, adding another venue, and possibly adding and LPGA component. “If there were any questions about the way players were going to respond and how sustainable it is… you’ve got to be around the locker room at the end of play on both sides, on the winning or defeated side, to see how much this really does mean to them,” Monahan said. “I think, again, that’s what fans respond to, and they are responding to it. I think there is going to be a lot more TGL in the future.”
As for the Tour Championship, the tour is exploring abandoning its current staggered-start format that awards the FedEx Cup leader a strokes advantage at the outset in favour of something more consequential competitively. The topic was on the agenda at last week’s policy board meeting and will be discussed again during the Player Advisory Council meeting.
“If we’re spending this amount of time on it and getting this level of input, and the players are taking an active role in helping us define what would ultimately be an improvement in the Tour Championship, I’d like to think that that’s going to lead to a result,” said Monahan, who couldn’t say for sure if the format change could be implemented in time for this year’s season finale in August at East Lake Golf Club. “We’re going to make sure that the moves that we’re making, No.1, respond to fans, that the players themselves believe in, believe in and have advocated for, before we make any change. That’s why this is probably a longer process than you would have imagined it being.”
