PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — You wouldn’t necessarily call Jay Monahan’s annual Tuesday morning press conference at the Players Championship an exercise in transparency.
On the topics that mattered most on Tuesday morning at the Players, Monahan’s performance at his annual state-of-the-state could perhaps best be characterized by its evasiveness. He will not negotiate in public on the terms of an agreement that will end golf’s prolonged war and reunify the sport. He is unwilling to offer qualitative statements about his negotiating counterparts — other than President Trump, who Monahan described as an ally — or their potential interests and sticking points. And he is certainly not going to speculate whether a stalemate between the Tour and Saudi PIF could stretch into its third year, further testing fan and sponsor patience.
Eight times during the question-and-answer segment of the press conference, the commissioner deflected a question about the LIV talks by reiterating the Tour’s previously stated “priorities” — repeating himself so often that the commissioner joke-answered an unrelated question with the same language.
These were hardly inspiring words for golf fans hoping to see the other side of the sport’s bitter conflict, and yet their subtext was revealing. For one of the first times since appearing on Bloomberg back on the morning of June 6, 2023, Monahan addressed Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi PIF, by name (“We appreciate Yasir’s innovative vision”), affirmed the Tour’s desire to see golf reunified, and stated his belief that negotiations would eventually reach the conclusion golf fans seek (“the prospect of reunification” between the Tour and LIV is “very real.”). He addressed reports that have swirled in recent days — stemming from a story by Golf Digest’s Joel Beall — that negotiations stalled after an initial White House meeting between Al-Rumayyan and a delegation from the PGA Tour, acknowledging there have been “ebbs and flows” in the discussions between the two sides. And he used recent TV ratings success and sponsor agreements to push back against a narrative that suggested the Tour needed an agreement with the PIF more than the near-trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund needed a deal with the Tour.
“We’re doing everything that we can to bring the two sides together,” Monahan said. “That said, we will not do so in a way that diminishes the strength of our platform or the very real momentum we have with our fans and our partners.”
In its own, roundabout, practiced sort of way, these words amounted to a confession: The PGA Tour is ready to make a deal. Which raises one pressing question: Who isn’t?
Perhaps even more than one the date of the June 6th merger agreement, there appears to be consensus from a majority of the golf world. The Tour is on board, the President is on board, LIV’s most important players are on board. Could it be that the backers of pro golf’s renegades, the Saudi PIF, are not? And if not, why not?
It’s often said that the best negotiations are the ones where both sides leave feeling as though they’re giving more than they’re getting — but it’s often forgotten that those words apply to the emotional as much as the financial. For the Tour, the emotional toll of this process is nearly three years of withering criticism and existential dread, while the financial toll might mean a tour that looks different: a more globally based schedule featuring fewer events, bigger stars, and as Monahan suggested, “some elements” of LIV. For the PIF, the financial pieces (a multi-billion-dollar investment in the PGA Tour and a seat on the board for Al-Rumayyan) are clear, but the emotional incentives are not. How does the PIF view its crown jewel sports league? Almost nothing exists in the public record. What is the PIF’s appetite for more spending after three years and an estimated $5 billion is netting the league a negligible U.S. TV audience?
It takes two to tango. The Tour’s demands might be unreasonable. Its perceived upper hand might be imagined. (Does it have the runway to survive another multi-billion-dollar wave of defections to LIV? And if that wave comes, could the Tour’s commercial advantages erode alongside its competitive ones?) But with $1.5 billion in the bank from the Strategic Sports Group, TV ratings rebounding and Fortune 500 sponsors signing up by the hour, those concerns aren’t as dire at the moment as they once sounded.
It might have been hard to hear from Jay Monahan on Tuesday morning, but three years after “legacy, not leverage,” it’s clear the conversation has changed.
Just not out loud.
