The stunning "framework agreement" between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf on June 6, 2023, turned the professional game upside down and left golf media scrambling to make sense of what it all meant.
The day after, Sports Illustrated's Alex Miceli wrote a scathing commentary on PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, not only for making the agreement but for his decisions in the months leading up to it.
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The piece, titled “Jay Monahan’s Mistakes Led to Deal With LIV Golf, and Now He’ll Have to Answer for Them,” won first place for commentary in the 2024 Golf Writers Association of America writing contest, the GWAA announced Wednesday.
“Connecting the dots, it’s clear the PGA Tour was walking down a path of financial hardship, which was paved with Monahan’s inability to properly read the room when the PIF and LIV Golf first came calling,” Miceli wrote.
“Let me first say this: At first blush, the deal seems positive for the PGA Tour and its members and in 10 years what happened Tuesday and what occurs over the next year or so may be viewed more positively than it is today.
“But how did the PGA Tour get in this position? And why should the architect of this catastrophe be rewarded?
“Monahan is both fireman and arsonist.”
The award was Miceli's first from the GWAA.
Longtime SI writer Gary Van Sickle was honored for three pieces during the year. He won third place in the short features category for a story from the Arnold Palmer Invitational on the unique garment awarded to the tournament winner: “Meet the Arnold Palmer Invitational's Red Cardigan Sweater, the Second-Best Winner's Garment in Golf.”
“Sunday evening, the Arnold Palmer Invitational champion will accept a hard-earned trophy, enough money to purchase a small island in the Greater Antilles and don The Red Cardigan Sweater. The latter will allow us to temporarily travel back in time to a more romantic era. You know—post-Jurassic but still pre-Tom Brady.”
Van Sickle also earned a third-place nod in the news/game category for his Sunday night deadline piece from Augusta National, “Jon Rahm Runs Away From Brooks Koepka, Other LIV Golfers to Win a Magical First Masters.”
He also received an honorable mention in the short features category for a story on the famous 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass, written during the Players Championship: “From Jay Monahan to Mike Tirico to a PGA Tour Father, Everyone Has a Story From the Island 17th.”
The series of vignettes included one with the PGA Tour commissioner, three months before the earthquake moment Miceli wrote about.
“Jay Monahan likes to go for a late-morning stroll when he’s working in the PGA Tour’s ultra-modern new office complex. Usually around 11:30 or so, he ambles about 350 yards—or the approximate length of a Rory McIlroy drive—and finds himself near the tee box of the par-3 17th, arguably golf’s most identifiable hole.
“Why not? If you had the Mona Lisa hanging in your garage, wouldn’t you stop by to gaze at it every day?”
The GWAA contest accounted for stories published in 2023 and received 364 entries across seven categories.
