LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Lucas Glover has concerns with the direction the PGA Tour is headed as a business. He hasn’t been afraid to voice those concerns publicly. On Monday evening, he didn’t hold back on his SiriusXM show, “The Lucas Glover Show,” while reacting to the news of Jimmy Dunne resigning from the PGA Tour Policy Board on Monday on the eve of the 2024 PGA Championship.
“We (golfers) have no business having the majority (on the board). Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business,” he said. “We’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are gonna own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”
He added: “The board situation and the way they’re gonna reach these decisions now is backwards. It’s 100 percent backwards.”
Dunne, who was the central figure in meeting with Saudi Arabia’s PIF boss and LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan that led to the bombshell framework agreement announced June 6, 2023, resigned from the Board on Monday, stating that no progress had been made on a deal and his role had become “utterly superfluous” with the players controlling the majority of the board seats.
Here’s a more complete version of Glover’s comments on the subject with his co-host Mac Barnhardt, a longtime golf agent.
“Yesterday Jimmy Dunne resigns from the board. I’ve known Jimmy for a long time. Blown away,” Barnhardt said. “I don’t know enough to know anything. I’m probably too ignorant of what’s going on to know this, but I’d want Jimmy Dunne in that room. I’m sorry. That’s just the way you gotta feel. And not that I don’t want you golfers in it. I think you golfers have a say in this, but I mean, this is a big sport and a really tough time, and I would want some serious business people sitting around the table.”
“Yeah, me too. And I’m probably gonna irritate my peers and fellow Tour players by saying what I’m about to say,” Glover responded, “but for a long time the players were outnumbered on the board, five to four. And a lot of players thought that it would never be our Tour if we didn’t have the majority. Well, I think we’re seeing why it was that way now. We do have the majority and we have no business having the majority. Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business. And we are running a business now. And we’re all on the same team because this for-profit entity that’s about to launch needs to get it right. It needs to be right. And players that think they know more than Jimmy Dunne, players that think they know more than (Board chairman of the 501-C6) Ed Herlihy, players that think they know more than (chairman of the new for-profit entity) Joe Gorder, players that think they know more than (Tour commissioner) Jay Monahan, when it comes to business, are wrong.”
He continued: “And unfortunately, people like Jimmy are now seeing this and they’re now understanding that their vote actually doesn’t count. The exact same way the players felt before we had the majority. Problem is we need those people because guess what? They went to school for business, not golf. My biggest fear in all this is that it’s gonna turn into the American presidency where nobody that’s actually qualified will actually run for it because they know that it’s fruitless.
“And that’s where we’re headed now with our Board, unfortunately, is because now that the players have a majority and they somehow think they’re smarter than the business people, why are the best business people gonna come help us? And Jimmy just basically said that. And I’m not putting words in Jimmy’s mouth, but I can read and I can also see what’s happening, and I know what’s happening. And it’s scary because we’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are gonna own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”
Glover argued that the Tour needs to revisit its Board setup.
“It’s swayed too far the other way now. And I was always on the fence about the whether the players should have a majority or not. And the last 10 years, and especially the last 18 months, have really opened my eyes that golfers are golfers. Businessmen are businessmen. There’s a big difference. And these guys that play golf for a living that think they know how to run a business, they need to look in the mirror and figure this out because I’m sad to say they’re wrong, and now they’ve run off Jimmy Dunne,” Glover said.
He added: “I’m at the point in my career now and my future and my family’s future hinges on this, these decisions that are about to be made. So that’s why I’ve decided in the last few months to start speaking up. But the Board situation and the way they’re gonna reach these decisions now is backwards. It’s 100 percent backwards. And like I said, a lot of my peers and a lot of other Tour players aren’t gonna agree with me. But the proof’s in the pudding, we had an opportunity to get this done and it didn’t get done. And now we’re losing the people that are the most effective and already had it done to be frank.”