Jay Monahan has found himself at the centre of the saga between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf – as he’s in charge of negotiating a peace deal with the Tour’s Saudi rivals
Jay Monahan is the man in charge of the PGA Tour (
Image: Getty Images)
Jay Monahan’s approach to the PGA Tour’s ‘framework agreement’ with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) has been questioned by DP World Tour star Eddie Pepperell.
Monahan has found himself at the centre of the saga surrounding the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, having initially thwarted the threat of the Saudi-backed series. A year on from LIV’s inception, Monahan and co opted to change their stance, announcing a framework agreement that would see the hostility between the two circuits end.
Over 12 months since the Tour commissioner announced plans to work in unison with PIF though, no official deal is yet to be completed, with the top of professional golf seemingly left in a state of limbo.
Monahan’s initial statement last year appeared to confirm that an end to the fallout was near, Pepperell however believes this approach was the wrong one. “I was thinking about this earlier,” Pepperell said whilst appearing on The Chipping Forecast.
“I just think the language that was used in hindsight by Jay Monahan was wrong. To call it a framework agreement I think suggested something that really wasn’t there. I don’t think it was much of an agreement at all.”
As a result the Englishman believes Monahan’s language may well have prompted Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton to make the Saudi switch, with a peace deal appearing to look lightly.
“Really all that was agreed was to stop suing one another,” he added. “Out of that language came Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, players like that looking and thinking ‘oh, something’s in the pipeline’. I wonder if they regret using the language they used. It’s going to be interesting to see.”
For all the latest on news, politics, sports, and showbiz from the USA, go to The Mirror US .
Monahan is under huge pressure to end golf’s civil war ( Getty)
Updates have been sparse in recent months in regard to the process of the deal. It was initially revealed last year that both the PGA Tour and Saudi fund had set themselves a deadline of December 31, 2023 to complete their agreement, but this end-of-year target was of course missed.
Monahan’s latest comments on the negotiations came ahead of last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, and it appears there is still plenty of work left to do. “They’re very complicated discussions. There’s a lot of elements to them,” he commented at TPC Southwind.
“When you have the level of interaction, we’re continuing to meet and move forward and discuss and debate, you can’t be anything but hopeful. As it relates to times and timeframes and where we are, I’ll just say we’re in a good place with the conversations. That’s the most important thing.”
A similar sentiment was echoed by Tiger Woods at last month’s Open Championship. Woods – who is representing his fellow players at the negotiation table – said at Royal Troon: “We’re making progress. I can’t tell you more than that just because we’re not going to negotiate on the outside. We’ve got to keep everything at a high level and private, but things are moving and things are changing. It’s evolving each and every day.
“There’s e-mails and chains and texts and ideas that we bounce back and forth from both sides. There’s a good interchange of ideas and thoughts of how the game could look like going forward. It’s just a matter of putting that all together legally.”
