Jay Monahan
Stacy Revere, Getty Images
Outgoing commissioner Monahan reflects on his tenure
By JOHN HOPKINS
Well before sunrise most mornings, Jay Monahan takes his 8½-by-11-inch black-and-white lined notebook and using a blue pen – always a blue pen – starts writing what he calls his journal. “Journaling is what is on my mind that day, what my emotions are, what I accomplished the day before, what I must do today. I find it to be cathartic.”
What then has Monahan, 56, written about the past tumultuous months, ones dominated by COVID-19, by LIV, during which he told the board he would not renew his contract as PGA Tour commissioner when it expires this December and has seen the arrival of Brian Rolapp, formerly of the NFL, as his successor?
“Not a lot has changed in the way I go about journaling,” Monahan said last week. “If you go back 18 months ago or 13 or 14 months when Brian came on board I do spend a fair amount of time writing about the current state of the tour. Talk about the things I need to do to help Brian succeed, help the tour succeed, help prepare myself for my time away from the tour which is obviously coming up at the end of this year. I tend to spend a lot of time in gratitude, to the people I have worked alongside as teammates, to all our players for their exceptionalism in really challenging times.
“When it comes to what I am most proud of, my comments would be more of a we than an I … it takes a lot more than one person. I hope people will say we protected the integrity of the PGA Tour. During an unprecedented period of disruption we left it stronger than we found it.”
He has his regrets. “I think one would be the way we communicated the framework agreement [in June 2023 between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund],” he said. Friends of Monahan’s have suggested he might have been pressured into the announcement by his board members. “To me it was an effort to resolve a damaging division in professional golf and I was not clear about what we had agreed to and what remained unresolved. That created pain and confusion for our players, our employees and our fans. I take responsibility for that and I regret that.”
It is striking how well Monahan has conducted himself these past months. They couldn’t have been easy for him. To him, it was how he had to behave. “It’s the way I’m wired. I want nothing more than the tour to succeed. Hopefully I am being helpful. I really enjoyed all my interactions with Brian. It has been gratifying to see him do so well. I hear people say he doesn’t have a long background in our sport.
“He has followed it. He understands the business of it. He brings perspective to the table. He asked a lot of questions. He takes a lot of input. He’ll be patient in getting the right outcome. I have every confidence that the game is in good hands with him leading the PGA Tour forward.”
Jay Monahan (right) with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp
Cliff Hawkins, Getty Images
To some, the fourth PGA Tour commissioner is a man of two parts. “Everybody who encounters him sees the Jay who is hail fellow, well met, back-slapping, quick to give a guy a hug. That is the ‘Golf Jay,’ a great guy to play golf with, unless you compete against him,” said Ty Votaw, who worked at the PGA Tour concurrently with Monahan for 14 years. “Then there’s the ‘Hockey Jay,’ the one who is not afraid of confrontation. It’s the hockey culture of sharp elbows.”
Monahan listened intently to those words and then started to explain the Hockey Jay. “I’ve heard that and hopefully … people understand in those instances that I was clear in my position. I felt … that was an important part of my responsibility, to defend the tour but to make sure people understood where we were coming from. Sometimes you do that really well, sometimes you don’t.”
Even so, Golf Jay is the overriding impression people have of Monahan. He is a people person. “He’s Irish. He has the gift of the gab,” Tim Finchem, Monahan’s predecessor as commissioner, once said. “People don’t just like doing business with Jay Monahan. They like him. They like the way he goes about his business.”
Gregory Shamus, Getty Images
Seth Waugh is a past CEO of the PGA of America and prior to that CEO at Deutsche Bank. “When we were doing the Boston thing [the Deutsche Bank Championship] there had to be 50 people who came up to me and said: ‘I’m Jay’s best friend’ or ‘Jay is my best friend,’ which is obviously impossible. It’s who he is. He is of Boston, of golf and of family.”
Ah, that word, family. “When you meet Jay Monahan you meet his family,” Votaw said.
“It’s the core of who he is,” Waugh said.
“Nothing is more important to me than my family,” Monahan said. “My mom and dad instilled that in my brothers and I at a very young age. My dad is 83 years old and I have yet to meet someone on this planet that loves the game more than he does. He plays it every single day or every day that ends in a ‘Y’ as he says. When I look at my family, my two brothers share that passion. It’s the central fabric in our family and it has been that way since I was a little kid.”
As he began to talk about his mother, who died of cancer in 2007 aged 61, Monahan’s demeanour changed. His shoulders dropped an inch or so, his voice softened and he paused to look out of the window of his office as if he was summoning up memories of her in his mind’s eye. You suspect that tears were close at hand.
“Mom was the leader in the house. I never met someone who was more encouraging of us. She got you to think you could do things that maybe you didn’t think you could do. That was her superpower. Between my brother Brendan and I we played six years of college hockey at Trinity [College] and … my mom missed one game.
“As she battled cancer particularly in those last couple of years there’d be people coming into our house all the time sitting down with her who had just been diagnosed with cancer and she’d be there encouraging them. I’ll never forget it … a big part of who we are as a family is her spirit.”
Doing the right thing was always [Jay’s] first instinct. He looked to figure something out rather than just say no, which is one of the great qualities. … he will go down in history as an amazing human being and a very influential commissioner.”
seth waugh
In Britain a few years ago, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was asked two unusual questions: whether he made the bed at home and did he load the dishwasher? The same questions were put to Monahan. “I am up very early so my wife is still sleeping so in virtually every instance I am not making the bed because I don’t want to disturb her.
“As it relates to loading the dishes, I am absolutely a helping hand. As for cooking, I’m a griller. I think I am really strong in that area. When I make steaks … with Montreal sauce, I get some high marks.”
Guy Kinnings, chief executive of the DP World Tour, endorses that. “When I’ve had dinner at his house it wouldn’t totally surprise me if he’d had some part in the cooking,” Kinnings said.
“Jay was a very respectful member of our board,” Kinnings added. “He didn’t mind getting up at some ungodly hours to join us for [DP World Tour] board meetings. Whether dialling in or being over here in person, he does it very well.”
How will Monahan be remembered when he leaves the tour? “I’ve never met anyone with more integrity,” said Keith Pelley, the former DP World Tour chief executive.
“Jay got dealt a very tough hand,” Waugh said. “He did an amazing job in COVID, which has been lost because of the LIV thing. Doing the right thing was always his first instinct. He looked to figure something out rather than just say no, which is one of the great qualities. I think it would be a tragedy not to think that he had a huge effect on the game, and he will go down in history as an amazing human being and a very influential commissioner.”
