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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.
