Jay Monahan returned from a monthlong absence atop the professional golf world with a revealing memo to players Wednesday.
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How about this for an entrance?
On Wednesday night, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan returned to the general public eye for the primary time since taking medical go away with an explosive memo to players detailing a collection of updates on the Tour’s future within the wake of the bombshell settlement with the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
The greatest developments to come from Wednesday’s memo, which was obtained by GOLF.com, encompass negotiation on the framework settlement with the PIF, which Monahan stated is “ongoing.” For the primary time, the Tour offered players with a collection of latest particulars concerning the deal, together with a number of the key parts that might come to decide its eventual ratification by the PGA Tour’s participant advisory board.
In the memo, Monahan stated the Tour was working to current a “Player Benefit Program” believed to be geared toward offering Tour loyalists with a “financially significant” system of repaying players for not defecting. Such a program has been a subject of specific intrigue amongst players, a few of whom turned down eight-and-nine-figure gives from the PIF-backed LIV Golf final 12 months to stay with the PGA Tour.
“This program, should we reach a Definitive Agreement, will be financially significant in total and incremental to our planned compensation package,” Monahan stated within the memo. “More details to come as we … determine how players from across the membership would benefit.”
Another important piece of negotiations, as written by Monahan, is that the Tour has appointed a “task force” geared toward “developing potential pathways back to the PGA Tour for LIV players who wish to reapply in the future.” It stays to be seen if the duty drive will impose penalties upon those that do, or how these penalties will look if they’re imposed. The activity drive is being led by PGA Tour’s chief tournaments and competitions officer Andy Pazder alongside newly minted “chief player officer” Jason Gore and EVP/vice counsel Neera Shetty.
These teams will work as well as to a brand new “third-party special advisor” to players, Raine Group’s Colin Neville, who has been appointed within the wake of the framework settlement. Neville will assist streamline communication between the Tour and players throughout a “complicated and time intensive” negotiation with the PIF, Monahan stated.
Sharp golf followers will acknowledge Neville’s identify; he was one of many first individuals concerned within the formation of a brand new rival golf league means again in 2020. In some ways, LIV is Neville’s brainchild — he helped to conceive of the thought for the “Premier Golf League” that was later coopted by the Saudis and used within the creation of LIV.
Buried additional within the briefing, Monahan introduced the PGA Tour wouldn’t be supporting the USGA and R&A’s joint golf ball rollback proposal. Monahan stated the PGA Tour was “not able to support” the rollback after there was “significant belief” among the many Tour membership that the proposed rule was “not warranted and not in the best interest of the game.” That improvement comes as a significant blow to each governing our bodies, which have proposed the rule within the hopes of reigning within the skilled recreation’s rising distance beneficial properties.
The memo comes at a time of elevated scrutiny for Monahan and far of PGA Tour management, which struck the framework settlement with the PIF with out the information of its players. The closing — or “Definitive” — pact with the Saudis have to be agreed upon by the top of this 12 months, however that should come with a majority of participant assist. These bulletins would appear to be made at shoring up assist amongst no matter holdouts stay among the many participant membership.
Monahan returned to his position atop the PGA Tour on July 17, a few month after asserting he was quickly stepping away from his submit with an undisclosed medical situation.
Monahan nonetheless has not publicly addressed what precipitated him to step away from his position on the top of the controversial settlement with the PIF. A selection line on the high of his memo, although, signifies he isn’t planning on going wherever.
“I have fully recovered,” he stated. “And feel stronger than ever.”
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