CROMWELL, Conn. — Jay Monahan played his collegiate golf at Trinity College, and he also played hockey there. In his fifth year as commissioner of the PGA Tour, he may need recall all of his old forechecking, elbowing and slashing skills because he’s in a fight for his organization’s life, and there is no skating through or away from it.
“I am not naïve,” Monahan said at the start of a 40-minute press conference at the TPC River Highlands, where the Travelers Championship begins Thursday. “If this is an arms race and if the only weapons here are dollar bills, the PGA Tour, an American institution, can’t compete with a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in an attempt to buy the game of golf. We welcome good, healthy competition. The LIV Saudi Golf League is not that. It’s an irrational threat; one not concerned with the return on investment or true growth of the game.”
Monahan, 52, was speaking just as Brooks Koepka’s jump to the LIV Golf series was becoming official, which seemed to take players and officials off guard this week. “I’m surprised at a lot of these guys because they say one thing and then they do another,” Rory McIlroy said. “It’s pretty duplicitous on their part to say one thing and then do another thing.”
