Golf: Golf-Monahan right man for job, says McIlroy, but not everyone on board

(Reuters) – Rory McIlroy offered embattled Jay Monahan a vote of confidence on Wednesday, amid ongoing criticism of the PGA Tour commissioner over his negotiations for a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Monahan has been trying to win back golfers’ trust ever since he shocked the sport last June by announcing the PGA Tour had been in secret negotiations with LIV Golf backers PIF on a framework agreement that would effectively unify the two circuits in a larger commercial business.

PGA Tour members were caught off guard by the developments with many still feeling betrayed by Monahan for not consulting them.

Tiger Woods said at the time that he was left “frustrated” by the lack of player involvement.

McIlroy, who like Woods has been one of the PGA Tour’s most vocal supporters in the sometimes bitter feud with LIV, said he was stunned by the news of the potential deal with PIF, but on Wednesday the four-time major winner defended Monahan for the job he has done.

“You look at what Jay has done since he took over,” the Northern Irishman said at TPC Sawgrass where the PGA Tour’s flagship event, the 50th Players Championship, gets underway on Thursday. “The media rights deal, navigating us through COVID, the strategic alliance with the DP World Tour.

“I would say creating PGA Tour Enterprises, we were just able to accept a billion and a half dollars in the business, people can nit-pick and say he didn’t do this right or didn’t do that right.

“If you actually step back and look at the bigger picture, I think the PGA Tour is in a far stronger position than when Jay took over.”

While issues remain, Monahan said during his press conference on Tuesday that talks with the PIF were accelerating as were reports a deal could be done before next month’s Masters.

Monahan also took time to admit he had made mistakes, learned from them and was working hard to regain players’ trust maintaining he is the right person to lead the PGA Tour forward.

Not everyone is in agreement.

Xander Schauffele said that the commissioner still has a long way to go to regain the trust of the membership while Viktor Hovland wants a leader who will take ownership.

“I don’t know exactly what should have been done because at the end of the day I don’t have all the information,” said Hovland on Wednesday. “But at the same time, there were some things that were said that has been walked back on and then things have been very contradictory.

“As a leader of an organisation, I will want a person like that to take some ownership and say, ‘hey, we made a couple of mistakes, but this is how we’re going to rectify it’, instead of kind of sweeping it under the rug, which I felt like has been done to a certain degree.”

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto. Editing by Toby Davis)