{{ubiquityData.prevArticle.description}}
{{ubiquityData.nextArticle.description}}
Six weeks ago, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan stood in the sunshine near the practice green at Harbour Town Golf Links, the RBC Heritage just hours from its pandemic-delayed restart.
Wearing a pink shirt and tan-colored, five-pocket golf pants, Monahan moved casually from one socially distanced conversation to another, the golf course not much busier than it would be on a normal day in summer vacation season.
Monahan didn’t just engineer the PGA Tour’s restart after a sudden, jarring three-month sabbatical. He was on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – just like he’d been in Fort Worth, Texas, the week before and as he would be at other tournament sites – seeing it, feeling it, evaluating first-hand the PGA Tour’s new world order.
What Monahan was doing – and has continued to do – was bigger than the PGA Tour. He became, in many cases, the front man for professional sports’ return to competition. While NASCAR restarted about the same time as the PGA Tour, Monahan – around whom golf’s leaders coalesced in creating a new tournament schedule – became an example of a strong, focused leader in a time of crisis.
Faced with losing millions of dollars every week, the PGA Tour and its various branches stayed idle. Monahan resisted the temptation to hurry back, focusing instead on doing it right and doing it at the right time.
“What he faced was doubly unprecedented, if there is such a thing,” said Mark Steinberg, manager of many of golf’s biggest names including Tiger Woods as well as top-level stars in other sports.
“Not only are these unprecedented times, Jay didn’t have other leagues to look at and see how they were going to get back to playing. He didn’t have the benefits of seeing the positives and negatives with other leagues. He took some risks and he was a true leader.”
When Major League Baseball began its truncated season last week, it was after commissioner Rob Manfred had talked with Monahan about the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned in guiding golf’s return.
As the NBA goes about resuming its season in a highly controlled environment in Orlando, Florida, commissioner Adam Silver also reached out to Monahan for a better understanding of how to navigate the strange days the world finds itself in now.
What did Monahan share with the leaders of other sports?
“I think we’ve shared what our plans were going into our return,” Monahan said in a recent question-and-answer session with the media. “I think what they’re most curious about is: ‘What are you learning now that you’re in operation and that your plans are underway, and what are some of the things that we could benefit from.’
“I think a lot of those things ... are tied to the adjustments that we’ve made, and just being able to explain to them what we saw, what we experienced. And then why we made the adjustments we’ve made, and how that may or may not apply to what they're going to experience when they return to play themselves.”
There is no guidebook for how to handle what hit the world earlier this year, literally changing our way of life. Though there were warnings about the impact of COVID-19, it wasn’t until we belatedly screeched to a halt in March that the gravity of the situation fully landed. Even then, it sounded like life might get back to normal in a few weeks. Now it’s been a few months and things are nowhere close to normal.
Monahan knows his business, having run tournaments, and his gift is in knowing and managing people. Monahan worked closely with and studied his predecessor, Tim Finchem, who excelled in building the PGA Tour’s brand and its value. They are different personalities – Finchem was more lawyerly while Monahan has a softer style – but both have been critical to the tour’s continued growth.
Just days after announcing its new multi-billion-dollar media rights deal in March, Monahan had no time to enjoy what could have been a career-defining success. With the threat of the Premier Golf League having been faced down, the COVID-19 pandemic hit like a sledgehammer.
It was not as simple as putting 144 players on a golf course for four days. There were jobs at stake, television contracts to honor, volunteers to manage, charities awaiting dollars and more to consider – the tentacles of the shutdown reaching not just into tournament communities but into countries around the world.
Beyond logistics, Monahan set a tone that was measured but reassuring, captaining a ship through a storm.
He understood the risks with restarting the PGA Tour and it was right to release the details of its testing results, knowing there would be players and caddies who would test positive. With nearly 7,000 tests and fewer than 25 positive results on the PGA and Korn Ferry tours, Monahan has the statistical proof that the tour’s plan is working.
When adjustments have been needed, they’ve been made and Monahan has shared what the tour has done and why. He was criticized early on by some for daring to start tournament golf again amid the pandemic but it has been a success while resisting the temptation to bring fans back too soon. It hasn’t been perfect but Monahan never promised perfection, just the pursuit of doing what’s right and what’s best for those involved.
It’s easy for chief executives to come across as cold and calculating, protected by the walls they build around themselves. Monahan, is the opposite. He’s the guy you want to spend time with, not because of his position but because of his personality and style.
He understands and appreciates the power of his position but he sees the whole room, not just the people who can help him. He sends hand-written notes to reporters who ask him questions. He will share what he can and explain why he can’t share everything.
“Quietly firm,” is how Steinberg describes Monahan’s leadership style.
“He’s not always the first person to speak,” Steinberg said. “He will assemble a room, he will assess the room and he will listen to the room. Then he will give his opinion without banging his fist on the table. But it’s still a firm opinion.”
Monahan inspires trust and that’s what separates the best leaders. When golf’s administrators were trying to build a schedule after their world stopped spinning in March, Monahan became their guiding voice.
“Jay was amazing,” said Seth Waugh, chief executive officer of the PGA of America.
Talk to the people who work around and for Monahan and their affection and appreciation are universal.
In the sunshine at Harbour Town earlier this summer, Monahan walked around by himself for a time one afternoon.
No entourage.
No sport coat.
No hint that the world was watching what he was doing.
E-Mail Ron