PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan reiterated his stance against the Saudi Arabia-backed Super Golf League during his annual state of the PGA Tour press conference: We’re moving on.
It was a message he first relayed to the players during the Tour’s mandatory player meeting two weeks ago at the Honda Classic.
“The PGA Tour is moving on. We have too much momentum and too much to accomplish to be consistently distracted by rumors of other golf leagues and their attempts to disrupt our players, our partners, and most importantly our fans from enjoying the Tour and the game we all love so much,” he said. “There is no better place than at the home of the PGA Tour to reiterate our focus and promise to our fans and our players. Let’s move on.”
Monahan included one line in his opening remarks that seemed directed at Phil Mickelson, who in comments to the Fire Pit Collective’s Alan Shipnuck, accused Monahan of running “a dictatorship,” and said, “As nice a guy as comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right.”
Monahan noted that, “We are and we always will be focused on legacy, not leverage.”
Later, when asked if he was confident in his ability to ban any player that jumped to a rival league, Monahan added: “Our PGA Tour rules and regulations were written by the players, for the players. They’ve been in existence for over 50 years. I’m confident in our rules and regulations, my ability to administer them, and that’s my position on the matter. I can’t speak — say it any more clearly, that that is — we’re confident in our position, and we’re going to keep moving forward as a PGA Tour and focus on the things that we control.”
Monahan also addressed the controversial Player Impact Program, which increases from $40 million to $50 million this year:
“It’s a first-year program. To me we’ve got to look at it over the long-term, and I look at those 10 players and you’ve got 231 PGA Tour wins, 39 major championships, 7 of the last 15 FedEx Cups. So when you talk about having a positive impact on the game and you talk about legacy, we’re rewarding the players that have had the most positive impact and have sustained that over a career and are contributing to the business in that year,” he said. “Is it a perfect system? It’s the system that we’re going to go with through the end of 2022. We’ll reevaluate it at the end of the year. We think it’s working, but we’ll be open to taking a hard look and making adjustments that we think will further the program.”
In highlighting the Tour’s many successes, Monahan cited the following figures to support that the current business model for the Tour is far from broken and the future appears promising.
In 2021 and 2022, the Tour has 13 title sponsors that are entering new title sponsor agreements.
Tour reserves total $225 million down from a high watermark of about $300 million prior to COVID
The Tour raised $161 million for charity in 2021, and hope to return to pre-COVID levels of $200 million this year.
“What’s most important is if you look at the PGA Tour today, and you’ve heard me say this before, we’re going to grow faster over the next 10 years than we have at any other point in our history. Our players have spoken. They are 100 percent behind the PGA Tour. They have expressed their loyalty and commitment in their own unique ways.
“We’ve never been better positioned, and this is real,” he concluded.
Asked if he still feels threatened by the potential for a rival league and whether he still finds himself looking over his shoulder, Monahan answered bluntly.
“I wake up every day assuming someone is trying to take my lunch. That’s the way I operate. That’s the way we operate as a team,” he said. “So long as we focus on the things that we control, which is what I’ve always tried to do and what we’ve always tried to do as a team, I think we’re going to win, we’re going to grow, and I’m not looking over my shoulder, I’m looking forward.”