PGA commissioner Jay Monahan should be fired for many reasons

Golf

By Mark Cannizzaro

June 7, 2023 | 8:26pm

Jay must go.

In the wake of the stunning, about-face announcement Tuesday that the PGA Tour and the Saudi owners of LIV Golf have jumped into bed together after two-plus years of intense acrimony and vitriol, the trust between PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and the tour’s players has eroded like a baked-out sand trap.

The damage is widespread and it’s irreparable.

That is the primary reason that Monahan should not continue in his role, but not the only reason.

Monahan has, in large part, butchered the invasion of LIV Golf into the sport since before the controversial tour was started, never taking it seriously and declining to at least look into a way to stave it off as a competitor to the PGA Tour.

Monahan had the chance to cut the Saudi-funded tour off at the knees when Phil Mickelson and three other high-profile players came to him in the fall of 2021 with a proposal to buy out (with an investor) six to eight of the PGA Tour’s so-called lesser events — tournaments that did not attract a lot of the top players and thus didn’t draw a lot of TV and sponsor attention to them — and turn them into star-power team events.

At the time, Monahan, according to multiple sources, told the potential investor, “I don’t think this LIV thing is going to happen.’’

Just months later, after LIV Golf had gotten off the ground and was gaining attention, Monahan and the PGA Tour were scrambling to try to keep their players happy by creating “elevated’’ tournaments with $20 million purses they claim now they can no longer afford to sustain. Monahan conceded as much Tuesday when explaining the reasons for the decision to take the Saudis’ money.

So, here we are: Monahan sitting in that CNBC studio alongside Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund that oversees LIV Golf, looking like long-lost friends. And Monahan happily accepting the very Saudi money he banned PGA Tour players for taking when they joined LIV Golf.

The hypocrisy has incensed the players — and not just the ones who were banned for going to LIV, but even more so those who remained loyal to the PGA Tour by not taking the tens (and in some cases hundreds) of millions in Saudi money.

Monahan, in an interview with Golf Channel on Wednesday, said there will be a plan in place to compensate the PGA Tour players who remained loyal, though the specifics of that plan are very much yet to be determined. Monahan is still in scramble mode.

“I feel betrayed, and will not be able to trust anyone within the corporate structure of the PGA Tour for a very long time,” veteran PGA Tour pro Wesley Bryan tweeted.

Byeong Hun An, in a tweet, called the deal “a big lose for [those] who defended the Tour for the last two years.”

Ryan Armour, one of 16 members of…