Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele Say Jay Monahan Needs to Regain Players' Trust
NORTH BERWICK, Scotland – A couple of prominent PGA Tour players said Wednesday that commissioner Jay Monahan will have to regain their trust and that of others in the wake of the secret agreement made with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia that still leaves many questions for the sport.
Both Xander Schauffele and Jordan Spieth relayed their disappointment with how the situation played out, including the continued lack of clarity some five weeks after the “framework agreement’’ was announced.
“I’d say he has a lot of tough questions to answer in his return,’’ said Schauffele at the Renaissance Club, where he is defending his title at the Genesis Scottish Open. “I don’t trust easily. He had my trust. And he has a lot less of it now. I don’t stand alone when I say that. He’ll have to answer a lot of tough questions when he comes back.’’
Monahan has come under fire from many of those he represents since nobody outside of him and PGA Tour policy board members Ed Hirlihy and Jimmy Dunne was aware of the clandestine discussions with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, the sovereign wealth fund that is the main backer of the LIV Golf League. Negotiations began in April and weren’t disclosed until June 6.
On June 13, a week following the disclosure of the agreement, Monahan announced that he was taking a leave to deal with an undisclosed health issue. He announced last week that he is returning to work on July 17.
As part of the agreement, Monahan would retain his position as commissioner of the PGA Tour, a non-profit 501c-6 that operates events as we know it; he’d also become CEO of a new for-profit venture called PGA Tour Enterprises, with Al-Rumayyan as the chairman of the board.
Asked what kind of trust issues Monahan faces, Spieth said: “Quite a bit, just based on conversations I’ve had with players. And I think he realizes that. I’m sure he’s preparing for a plan to try and build it back.’’
Monahan said in a news conference on June 6 that he expected blowback from players and expected that he’d be called a “hypocrite’’ for denouncing the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League and then agreeing to work with the PIF.
Spieth was once a member of the PGA Tour policy board and has known Randall Stephenson for 10 years, he said. Stephenson, the former chairman of AT&T and a company with which Speith has an endorsement relationship, resigned his position on the board over the weekend. In his resignation letter, Stephenson wrote that he had “serious concerns’’ about the agreement and that it “is not one that I can objectively evaluate or in good conscience support, particularly in light of the U.S. intelligence report concerning Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.’’
Spieth said the Tour is losing a strong supporter “but I think his letter says how he feels and makes a lot of sense to me on where he's at regarding the entire situation.’’
And that situation remains muddled. Despite hours of testimony before a Senate subcommittee, PGA Tour chief operating officer Ron Price and Dunne gave no clarity on the agreement going forward.
PGA Tour policy board members Rory McIlroy and Charley Hoffman declined to comment on Wednesday at the Scottish Open, which begins Thursday.
A 276-page document was sent to players on Tuesday while the hearings were taking place and they contained considerable information about what was proposed on both sides. But nothing is definitive, and there appears to be considerable disconnect concerning how the PGA Tour believes it will play out with that of the PIF, especially in regards to LIV Golf’s future.
“I think if there's any disagreements, it won't work,’’ Spieth said. “Honestly we're very much in the dark on it. I don't sit on the board and I'm not on the PAC (Player Advisory Council) either.
“You talk to a lot of other players, it's been quite a shock from the get-go. I wouldn't say that there's enough details to be able to really comment much on any concerns because like if I -- if you ask me about something specifically, I could say I saw that somewhere and I saw that somewhere else that it wasn't part of it.
“So I really don't know. Jay is returning Monday and I'm sure as he starts to speak with you guys (media), maybe things have gone further. Clearly I think we would probably liked to have seen him at the Senate hearing if he was able to do so, just as a representative of the Tour. But I don't know if there's anything that concerns me. I just hear, if you name one factor of it, I've probably heard yes and no on either side of it on about every piece of it.’’
No. 1-ranked Scottie Scheffler said: “We didn’t really learn a whole lot, again. As a player on Tour, we still don’t have a lot of clarity as to what’s going on and that’s a bit worrisome. They keep saying it’s a player-run organization and we don’t really have the information that we need. I watched part of (the hearing) yesterday and didn’t learn anything.
“It really is kind of that cycle where it’s just a framework agreement and I don’t know what that entails. We are not involved in any of the discussions…. Should I have been? Probably not. But I’m sure that a few our player members should have been involved.’’
“My hope,’’ Schauffele said, “is that there isn’t much communication now and things are a little unsettling and there is a bit of a divide between management and the players, if you want to call it that. 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.’’