Jay Monahan: Negotiations with Saudis progressing, complex

CROMWELL, Conn. – PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has been abundantly clear since last June’s framework agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund set the stage for a possible reunification of the professional game: “I’m not going to negotiate in public,” he has said on numerous occasions.

Given the complexities of the negotiations with PIF, which owns LIV Golf, Monahan’s reluctance to give detailed answers about a potential deal is understandable but Wednesday at the Travelers Championship he did provide a modicum of clarity.

“The meeting that we had just two Fridays ago in New York, where our entire transaction committee, including Tiger Woods and Adam Scott being in person and Rory [McIlroy] dialing in from the Memorial Tournament, alongside Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Governor of the PIF and representatives of the PIF,” Monahan said.

“I would say to you that there were a lot of important aspects that we talked about in that meeting, aspects that will be important towards a final agreement that we got consensus on, and there are a number of areas that we recognize that we weren’t going to, but identified them, and that’s what we’re focused on and that’s what we’re working on.”

Monahan and the board of directors of PGA Tour Enterprises – the new, for-profit entity that was created to allow for outside investment into the Tour – met Tuesday in Hartford, Conn., for more than five hours with the negotiations with PIF one of the main agenda items.

Although the commissioner didn’t offer any details on the negotiations he did acknowledge how complicated it is to negotiate a multi-billion deal that is sure to draw scrutiny from the Department of Justice and includes the nuanced difficulty of reuniting a fractured game after a bitter three-year turf war.

“All I can say is that when you have people the likes of John Henry and Arthur Blank, Sam Kennedy, Andy Cohen, Joe Gorder have massive experience in sport and in the corporate world. When they say that this is one of the more complex scenarios that they have ever seen, I think that says a lot,” Monahan said. “There are a lot of different factors at play, but nobody who is having the conversation is unaware of the complexity, and everyone I think is embracing the fact that there are things, obstacles and things you got to overcome in a complex situation. We have the right people around the table for us and they do as well.”

The board did approve two adjustments to eligibility for the signature events including the addition of an alternate list to assure at least 72 players in each field. Five of the eight signature events this season have had fewer than 72 players and the new rule would allow officials to fill out fields via the Aon Next 10 list.

The board also approved a new exemption for Tiger Woods that would allow him access to seven of the eight signature events, excluding The Sentry. Woods played just one signature event this season, the Genesis Invitational which he hosts, on a sponsor exemption.

“I think it was important to our membership, it’s something we talked about with the [Player Advisory Council], it was important to our player directors, it was important to our board, it’s important to me because the man has won more than 80 events, and I think any event he’s ever played in he’s made it bigger, he’s made it better, he’s drawn more eyeballs to it, and I think just as an organization we wanted to celebrate his exceptionalism in that manner,” Monahan said.