PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Just before lunch Sunday, two men sat side by side in the clubhouse boardroom at the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass. To their right a television beamed pictures of the play that was taking place just outside the window, and Tim Finchem, the most recent PGA Tour commissioner, kept glancing at it.
He looked a little tired. He had just come from playing with his two grandchildren and soon would return to be with them. “The grandchildren are fine,” he said drily. “It’s their mother…,” and a smile threatened to spread over his face as his voice tailed off. “Grandchildren? They’re wonderful,” he said. “They have changed my life. They are so funny. I said to my wife we should record them and put their antics out there. We’d make some money. That didn’t go down too well.”
Alongside Finchem was Jay Monahan, the current commissioner and Finchem’s successor, the man who leads the PGA Tour’s response to the predatory advances being made on it by LIV Golf. He had a firm handshake, a ready smile and wore a well-ironed white sports shirt and a tan that indicated he has spent a lot of time in the sunshine.
Both men have held the same job, worked side by side and played together, most notably golf and skiing. Both have borne considerable pressure at different times in their lives as commissioner. How did they cope?
“I faced it, and I think I was good at dealing with it,” said Finchem, 75, who retired at the end of 2016 after 22½ years as commissioner. “If you feel like something is going to go amiss, then the next question is, do you have people around you that can positively impact whatever strategy you’re developing?
“Jay has been phenomenal at that. The stuff I did had some difficulties associated with it but nothing compared to what he has had to deal with. I coped with it by taking exercise. Golf as often as you can, but the harder you work out the better off you are in terms of your mindset.” Finchem is an avid and fast skier, better at it than he is at golf.
What with dealing with the pandemic and now LIV Golf, Monahan may have had more on his plate in the past few years than he expected.
“To me, stress and how you handle it is free-flowing, amorphous,” said the 52-year-old Monahan. His method of dealing with it is also working out. “Peloton, push-ups, sit-ups and the occasional run. I was never very good at running, but I did run years ago up north when I was a member of a Fat Bastards run club which raised money for charity. I don’t run any more.
“Throughout the pandemic I found myself walking and talking,” Monahan continued. “The beauty of living here is we are close to the beach. To this day I try and carve out time in my schedule so I can walk around the golf course and make phone calls and see the natural beauty of this place.
“Spending as much time as I can with my wife and kids, having as many open and honest conversations as you can have is very helpful to me. So is making sure you’re physically fit, and whatever the situation is you don’t take things personally. I also get energy from being around people, working with your team, your partners, trying to move the business forward. That is very helpful.
“Reading has always been important to me, but truth be told it has been harder this past year. My nightstand had a build-up of books that made me upset with myself. I am going to try and carve into that before I buy any more books.”
"People don’t just like doing business with Jay Monahan. They like him. People who meet Jay want to help because they like him so much. They like the way he goes about his business.”
Tim Finchem
When David Cameron was prime minister of the United Kingdom, he tried to spend at least an hour every week with each of his children. That chimed with Monahan.
“Our oldest daughter is a sophomore at college,” he said. “Our youngest daughter is a junior at Ponte Vedra High School. She comes down to the breakfast table every morning between 7 and 7:08. I try and make sure I am there so I get that time in her presence. She may not be open to converse at that time, but that is a really great way to get my day going. She gets through her business pretty quickly. I’d say it’s no more than 15 minutes, but I like that 15 minutes. I love it.
“My wife is extremely bright and a really good person to assess almost any situation. She helps me immeasurably. She is very aware of what happens in our business. There have been more than a few times when she has pointed out things to me that I wasn’t aware of. There is really no situation you can’t talk to her about. No situation that is coming that you can’t talk to her about.”
He paused for a few moments, struggling to make sure he expressed himself accurately. One sensed he didn’t often talk this way. “I think I am proud of and comfortable with my perspective and I owe that to my wife because she has been very helpful in having me see around corners. She will hate me talking about her. She is the most quiet person in the world.”
He pointed at Finchem. “He’s laughing because he knows how my wife is. Her questions get me back into line. She uses the Socratic method as a way of getting me to explain why I did something.”
At this, Finchem butted in. “Unfortunately, she passed that on to my wife. She and my wife are good friends. Once my wife got hold of that (Socratic) stuff, I was toast. In fact, I still am.
“Jay easily and quickly gets to somebody he is communicating with,” Finchem said, rising from his chair to make his way back to his grandchildren. “The way he brings the enthusiasm and strength to the party is incredible. People don’t just like doing business with Jay Monahan. They like him. People who meet Jay want to help because they like him so much. They like the way he goes about his business.”
John Hopkins