5 JAY MONAHAN

The Dark Knight in the PGA Tour’s battle with LIV Golf.

Jay Monahan has never faced a more tumultuous time as the head of the PGA Tour. He’s had his competency – or apparent lack of – questioned by Phil Mickelson and others. He’s been dragged into legal battles, rushed through mandates, and faced awkward questions about how much money he and the PGA Tour are sitting on after unveiling a $96 million cash injection for this season.

For now, he remains the central figure in golf’s ongoing soap opera, but his standing is far weaker than it was in 2019 when he was widely praised for securing a 70 percent increase on the Tour’s previous media rights deal. He does deserve credit for how he led the Tour through the pandemic, not to mention how he convinced the DP World Tour to side with them rather than the Saudis. But people in golf have short memories and the consensus on the ground is that Monahan acted too late to stop Greg Norman from poaching the Tour’s top talent.

Ultimately, it took two of the PGA Tour’s most loyal stars, Tiger and Rory, to form a united front and push through changes to the Tour’s structure to fend off another mass exodus of players. That Monahan was initially kept out of those discussions is perhaps indicative of how fragmented the Tour is right now.

He can at least cling to the notion that the PGA Tour still holds all the major cards – literally and figuratively – but the impending legal battle with LIV Golf is likely to have big repercussions for the future of golf and the Tour itself.

Monahan just needs to hope he comes out on the winning side, otherwise he may yet find himself cast as collateral damage.

“I think the TV deal, the domestic rights deal, that the PGA Tour did a year or so ago was incredible. I’d say overall Jay has done a wonderful job in terms of weathering the storm of the pandemic, putting more money in guys’ pockets, making this Tour the best tour in the world to play on.” Rory Mcilroy