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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Jay Monahan looked like he just won the lottery.
Sitting in his office at PGA Tour headquarters the first week of March, the commissioner was jubilantly talking about finalizing media rights contracts worth billions to the organization that will provide a decade’s worth of financial stability, substantially increase purses and significantly escalate the Tour’s charitable arm.
A week later, on Friday the 13th, mind you, he looked like he had just spent eight hours at the DMV.
With the situation changing by the hour, the spread of coronavirus had been elevated to a pandemic and eventually a state of emergency was declared in the United States, leaving Monahan no choice but to cancel the Players Championship and the following three events on the schedule.
Then Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley announced on Friday the Masters was postponed to a later date.
Throughout an exhaustive and gut-wrenching week filled with constant consultation with local, state and federal health officials as well as the World Health Organization, Monahan was a calm, steady presence during extraordinary times, a leader who listens and learns and doesn’t shirk responsibility.
Monahan, who became the Tour’s fourth commissioner Jan. 1, 2017, is a Type-A personality with an easygoing manner and an uncanny ability to remember names and make you feel like he’s known you for years, be it a player and his family, a caddie, an equipment rep, a volunteer, a fan, a sponsor. He doesn’t presume to be the smartest guy in the room. And Monahan, 48, relies on the wisdom of those on his staff and deals in facts, not fiction.
Yes, he took some hits for deciding initially to proceed with the Players – the Tour’s “Super Bowl,” he said – then for choosing to continue the show without fans for the final three rounds despite the NBA and NHL suspending their seasons, Major League Baseball canceling spring training and delaying its season, and the NCAA pulling the plug on March Madness. Finally Thursday evening, Monahan decided he had to pull the curtain after the first round at TPC Sawgrass was played.
“Anytime you make a change to a decision that you originally made, there’s an element of maybe we could have done that earlier,” Monahan said during his 8 a.m. news conference on Friday. “I’m very comfortable that we made the right decisions at the right times over the course of the week.
“I’m a fighter. I wanted to fight for our players and our fans and for this Tour to show how golf can unify and inspire. But as the situation continued to escalate and there seemed to be more unknowns, it ultimately became a matter of when, and not if, we would need to call it a day.”
Monahan was also fighting for the Tour’s flagship event and fighting for the local communities that profit when hosting tournaments and for those charities dependent on the Tour’s benevolence (last year the Players generated $9.25 million for charitable causes).
But the world kept changing along with the scoreboards during the first round and uncertainty kept mounting. A few players voiced their uneasiness about playing the final three rounds – even without fans – when most every other sport was absent. Monahan didn’t ignore the agitation.
“Jay Monahan is a fantastic commissioner, does a phenomenal job here with the PGA Tour,” Graeme McDowell said Friday morning. He was one of many players who were supportive of the commissioner. “It’s such a tough decision to make. It’s so hard to know what to do. There’s no playbook for this.
“He’s a great leader, and obviously it’s a very, very difficult call, especially when we’re here at the jewel in the crown of the PGA Tour. The weather is 85 and perfect, the golf course is in great shape, $15 million to play for, amazing sponsors. Such a hard call for him to make. But it’s the only call and it was the right call.”
Or as Gary Woodland said, “Jay knows. Jay gets it.”
On Saturday, with the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass eerily still instead of shaking under the weight of 30,000 in what would have been the third round, Monahan and three dozen of his staff served meals at the Sulzbacher Center, a homeless shelter in downtown Jacksonville. The Tour donated 2.8 million tons of food that would have satisfied the hunger of the expected 200,000 fans at the Players to the Sulzbacher Center and Feeding Northeast Florida.
It was no surprise that Monahan was already taking action a day after the Players was canceled. Others matter and he’s inspired to lead the PGA Tour in its efforts to make the best out of these uncertain times. Heading into the unknown, the PGA Tour couldn’t be in better hands.
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