Lucas Glover has sounded off about the current trajectory of the PGA Tour after Jimmy Dunne resigned from the board over concerns his role had become “utterly superfluous” now that players outnumber independent directors.
Dunne was one of the key figures behind the framework agreement between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the backers of LIV Golf.
In his resignation letter, Dunne cited a lack of “meaningful progress” in moving towards a concrete deal that would unify the men’s professional game.
He also admitted he had been left feeling surplus to requirements now that the PGA Tour board is made up of a majority of players and after being cut out of negotiations with the PIF.
Glover, who is in the field for this week’s PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club, lamented the loss of Dunne on his SiriusXM radio show and described the situation as “scary.”
“We [golfers] have no business having the majority [on the board],” Glover said. “Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit seven irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business.
“We’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are gonna own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”
He went on to say the board situation is “100 per cent backwards” and called on the players in a position of power to “figure this out”.
“It’s swayed too far the other way now,” he added. “And I was always on the fence about the whether the players should have a majority or not. And the last 10 years, and especially the last 18 months, have really opened my eyes that golfers are golfers. Businessmen are businessmen.
“There’s a big difference. And these guys that play golf for a living that think they know how to run a business, they need to look in the mirror and figure this out because I’m sad to say they’re wrong, and now they’ve run off Jimmy Dunne.”
Rory McIlroy, a close friend of Dunne, echoed Glover’s sentiments when he addressed the media ahead of his latest bid to end a Major drought that extends back to the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla.
“Honestly I think it's a huge loss for the PGA Tour if they are trying to get this deal done with the PIF and trying to unify the game,” McIlroy said. “Jimmy was basically ‘the’ relationship, the sort of conduit between the PGA Tour and PIF. It's been really unfortunate that he has not been involved for the last few months, and I think part of the reason that everything is stalling at the minute is because of that.
“So it is, it's really, really disappointing, and you know, I think the tour is in a worse place because of it. We'll see. We'll see where it goes from here and we'll see what happens.
“But I would say my confidence level on something getting done before last week was, you know, as low as it had been and then with this news of Jimmy resigning and knowing the relationship he has with the other side, and how much warmth there is from the other side, it's concerning.”
