Jay Monahan will return to his office on Monday with the whiff of revolt in the air after Xander Schauffele, the world No 6, said he and other golfers have trust issues with the PGA Tour commissioner. Schauffele highlighted a split between the players and the Tour’s leadership.
Monahan took a break from work on medical grounds shortly after last month’s announcement that the PGA Tour and DP World Tour had reached a shock agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Schauffele is among PGA Tour players who rebuffed overtures from LIV Golf – which is funded by the Saudis – while under pressure from Monahan and his board to remain loyal to golf’s traditional ecosystem.
Asked if his feelings towards or trust level in Monahan had changed, Schauffele answered in the affirmative. “We got a memo that he’ll be back on the 17th,” he said. “If you want to call it one of the rockier times on tour, the guy was supposed to be there for us, wasn’t. Obviously, he had some health issues. I’m glad that he said he’s feeling much better. But I’d say he has a lot of tough questions to answer in his return.
“I don’t trust people easily. He had my trust and he has a lot less of it now. So I don’t stand alone when I say that. He’ll just have to answer our questions when he comes back.”
It is clear Schuffele believes the players have not been informed nearly well enough about the PIF deal. “There isn’t much communication right now and things are a little bit unsettling,” he said. “There is a bit of a divide between management and the players, if you want to call it that, and my hope is that a positive thing coming from that will be more communication, more transparency, and sort of understanding which direction the tour will go with us being sort of the ambassadors of it.”
Schauffele is in a group of eight of the world’s top-10 players who will compete for the Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club in East Lothian from Thursday.
The R&A, meanwhile, has announced the winner of the Open Championship that starts on 20 July will collect $3m (£2.3m). The total prize fund at Royal Liverpool will be $16.5m, an increase of 18% from 2022. Intrigue will now surround the R&A’s approach to the Women’s Open, which takes place at Walton Heath next month. Last year, the women played for $7.3m, which represented a 26% increase on 2021.
