Monahan underestimated loyalty of players
On different occasions in golf ’s summer of discontent, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy delivered key messages that illustrate what PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan got wrong.
McIlroy was asked at the U.S. Open if he had lost respect for players in their prime years who were taking guaranteed cash from Saudi-funded LIV Golf, with its 54-hole events and 48-man fields, no cut and not much of an audience.
“I don’t understand for the guys that are a similar age to me going, because I would like to believe that my best days are still ahead of me, and I think theirs are, too,” McIlroy said. “So that’s where it feels like you’re taking the easy way out.”
At the British Open a month later, Woods left little doubt where he stood on players who had defected to the rival league run by Greg Norman.
“I disagree with it,” Woods said. “I think what they’ve done is they’ve turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.”
Monahan didn’t underestimate the threat of Saudi money or the dam
age it could inflict on a tour that hasn’t been challenged for 50 years. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bothered with an 898word memo in 2020 warning players they would have to pick one league or the other, even contemplating changes to the PGA Tour’s regulations if necessary.
What he underestimated was the loyalty of his players. Too many are willing to take the easy way out.
Too many are turning their backs on the very tour that made them worth watching, all because of financial offers
that turned their heads. Monahan leaned on the phrase “legacy, not leverage,” a clever play on words after Phil Mick
elson had been exposed in a series of published comments in February that his main interest in the Saudi-backed league was to get leverage for changes on the PGA Tour he felt were long overdue.
But it’s not about legacy, either. It’s not about history.
And it’s not about the bluster of playing less for more. Why else would 10 players take the money and run to federal court in California to file an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour?
Nothing motivates like money, and golf wasn’t immune. Players who say they were attracted to the team concept of LIV Golf either never played in a Ryder Cup or realized they had played for the last time.
Players made choices and those should be respected. And they were, until the inevitable lawsuit filed last week that demands the right to eat fruit from every tree in the garden.
The PGA Tour’s postseason starts this week. The fall portion will include two events.
More players are likely to follow after the FedEx Cup. Rumors are flying, and those can’t be trusted, either. Words have never been more hollow.
Monahan should know by now that a game built on integrity only applies inside the ropes.