Jay Monahan aims to address slow play as future with LIV still in negiotions
TOUR FUTURE: During his annual state-of-the-PGA Tour presser, commissioner Jay Monahan sounded bullish on the tour’s future regarding everything from addressing slow play to enhancing the fan experience on site and on TV. Pic: AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File
During his annual state-of-the-PGA Tour presser, commissioner Jay Monahan sounded bullish on the tour’s future regarding everything from addressing slow play to enhancing the fan experience on site and on TV.
As far as the state of “reunification” negotiations with the Public Investment Fund that owns LIV Golf, there was more contrived enthusiasm about process than there was substance about resolution. Seventeen questions he fielded were related to the negotiations and Monahan repeatedly dodged and tried to turn the focus back to the flagship Players Championship on tap this week at TPC Sawgrass. Read between the lines, however, and Monahan seems to be pointing fingers across the table for the relative impasse in reaching a deal.
“The talks are real, they’re substantial, and they’re being driven at the top levels of both organizations,” Monahan said.
“Our team is fully committed to reunification. The only deal that we would regret is one that compromises the essence of what makes the game of golf and the PGA Tour so exceptional.”
The tone has changed considerably over the course of the last month when updates went from a deal sounding imminent after a first meeting with U.S. president Donald Trump to reverting to “initiating dialog” after presumed setbacks in a second meeting at the White House. Not even the man who wrote a book called “The Art of the Deal” can strong-arm the Saudis into capitulating to the PGA Tour’s vision.
“When you’re in the midst of complex negotiations, particularly when you may be near a breakthrough, there are ebbs and flows in the discussion,” Monahan said, trying to maintain a thread of optimism. “The most important thing is the mutual respect that we’ve built over the last couple of years.
“We appreciate Yasir’s (Al-Rumayyan, PIF’s governor) innovative vision, and we can see a future where we welcome him on to our board and work together to move the global game forward. As part of our negotiations, we believe there’s room to integrate important aspects of LIV Golf into the PGA Tour platform. We’re doing everything that we can to bring the two sides together.
“That said, we will not do so in a way that diminishes the strength of our platform or the very real momentum we have with our fans and our partners. So, while we’ve removed some hurdles, others remain. But like our fans, we still share the same sense of urgency to get to a resolution.”
Speculation is that the biggest remaining hurdle is Al-Rumayyan’s insistence on making team golf a part of the game’s future at the highest level – a concept that hasn’t gained a lot of traction with fans on LIV Golf and runs anathema to the way the PGA Tour and professional golf has been built on meritocracy of competition and individual achievement.
Monahan said as much.
“Ultimately if you’re a player anywhere in the world, this is the platform that you want to get to,” he said, leaning comfortably back in his chair as he sat without wearing a tie. “These tournaments are 72-hole stroke-play tournaments at historic, iconic venues, with moments like we had last Sunday with Russell Henley and his family. That’s who we are as an organization, and that’s who we’ll always be as an organization.
“So that’s at the centre of the way that we think about what our fans want and what our players want, and that’s obviously a very important consideration in our discussions, which is why I’ve mentioned that today.”
What fans want was at the heart of Monahan’s announcement that the PGA Tour will finally try to address the plague of slow-play. Acknowledging that “external forces created an environment where we had to speed up where we always needed and wanted to go” and that “disruption has generated momentum, growth and real action,” his “fan forward” platform is tackling pace-of-play among other things.
“We’ve committed to addressing the speed of play,” he said. “It’s easy to identify the problem. It’s a little bit harder to find the solution, just given the depth and breadth of everything that goes into pace of play. But we are committed to finding the right solutions and making progress on that front.”
To that end, he announced that the tour will begin publishing speed-of-play-related statistics, launch new speed-of-play policies including assessing penalty strokes for violations on the developmental tours and test the impact of using rangefinders during the six tournaments between the Masters and PGA Championship.
“We’re excited to learn more about the impact of increased transparency and accountability through these efforts,” he said.
Players seem to welcome the initiatives.
“I think you just have to start stroking guys and giving guys actual penalties,” said Collin Morikawa. “What I’ve learned is that monetary fines are useless. We make so much money, and some guys frankly could care less. … I think they care more about playing good golf and making sure they make the playoffs and making sure they make, you know (top) 70, 50, 30. That’s where it hits hard.
“And I see no issue with (publishing pace stats). What is there to hide, right? If you’re slow, you know you’re slow. I mean, if you don’t know, then there’s an issue. To me, there’s no issue with letting it out. It’s only going to make things better because then you’re either going to have a target on you – put a little more pressure and hopefully you pick it up – or you get penalized.”
