The Loop

New PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan ‘brings personal touch at times lacking’ from predecessors

November 12, 2016
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US PGA TOUR

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“Not everyone in the golf world knew much about Jay Monahan except that he was anointed, and then appointed, the next PGA Tour commissioner.

“Odds are that Monahan knew about them,” Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press writes in this profile of Monahan.

“Monahan, who takes over on Jan. 1, brings a personal touch that was at times lacking from the three commissioners who preceded him. One example of that came on the practice range a few years ago during the Bridgestone Invitational.

“Caddies were in the middle of a class-action lawsuit against the tour over their treatment. Tension and mistrust were running high, especially at the sight of Tim Finchem talking with players on the range that day. Along came Monahan, and one caddie was asked if he knew much about Finchem’s new deputy commissioner.

“The caddie, his eyes narrowing as he looked Monahan’s way, said a player introduced them four or five years ago and while Monahan seemed like a decent guy, he would be just like the other suits at tour headquarters.

“Moments later, Monahan saw a familiar face and stopped to chat. He first introduced himself to the caddie, calling him by his first name.

“‘I don’t know if you remember, but we met a few years ago,’ Monahan told him.

“The mood lightened. Judgment was reserved.”

Euro Tour chief taking hits

Keith Pelley, chief executive of the European Tour, is determined to make over the tour to be more competitive with the PGA Tour. And in so doing, Ewan Murray of the Guardian notes, his reputation is on the line, and in recent weeks it has taken a few hits.

“Sympathy for Keith Pelley was in short supply last week,” Murray writes. “No sooner had the European Tour’s chief executive praised strong communication with players with regards to safety at the Turkish Airlines Open than one of the group contradicted him.

“‘I wasn’t the only one who believed it was about to be struck off the schedule due to the security concerns there,’ said Shane Lowry, in his routinely excellent column for the Irish Times. ‘[T]here were times last week we simply didn’t know what was going to happen and that is a situation that doesn’t suit me at all.

“‘I think the information we were getting, or probably more importantly weren’t getting, wasn’t good enough. Nobody sat us down and told us exactly what was going on.’”