Rory McIlroy has backed under-fire PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan after several other golf stars had expressed concerns over the executive’s stewardship of the historic golf tour.
Speaking at the Players Championship on Tuesday, Matt Fitzpatrick and Xander Schauffele both delivered brutal verdicts when asked whehter the commissioner is the right man to help the PGA Tour move forward and get the best deal in it’s ongoing merger talks with the Saudi Arabian backed LIV Golf league.
Monahan had also addressed the current state of the PGA Tour, claiming that talks with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund were ‘accelerating’. The 53-year-old also insisted during a press conference on Tuesday: ‘I am the right person to lead us forward.’
Monahan initially came under scrutiny last summer, when it was revealed that the PGA Tour had struck a bombshell agreement with their arch enemies LIV Golf over a merger. The commissioner had prior to then dismissed claims that the tours could join, but faced much backlash and calls to ‘step down’ by some members while others ‘had felt betrayed’.
However, McIlroy today backed Monahan, claiming that he has helped transform the PGA Tour in recent years to what it is today.
‘Yeah, I think so,’ he said when asked if the commissioner was the right man for the job. ‘You look at what Jay has done since he took over. 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, but 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.’
Shockwaves were sent through the world of golf when the initial merger announcement took place back in June last year, with McIlroy having been one of the staunchest critics of the Saudi-backed rival league.
After being one of LIV’s greatest adversarys, McIlroy reacted to the news of the merger stating that he felt like he had been left as a ‘sacrificial lamb’. But in recent months as the merger has drawn closer, McIlroy has taken a U-turn, claiming that unification is the only way that golf can improve as a sport.
He said: ‘I think some of the reaction to June 6th was warranted, but I think at this point it’s eight months ago, and we all need to move on. We all need to sort of move forward and try to bring the game back together.’
But he admitted he was uncertain on what golf’s future looked like, claiming that unification could still be some way off.
‘I think if you just unified the game and brought us all back together in some way, that would be great for the fans, I would imagine,’ said the four-time major winner, who will be out to win his second Players Championship this weekend at TPC Sawgrass.
‘I think that would then put a positive spin on everything that’s happened here, and like okay, get together, we all move forward, and I think people could get excited about that.
‘Again, I don’t know what that looks like, and that seems like it’s probably further away than it should be, but that’s my perspective on it.
The Northern Irishman’s Ryder Cup team-mate, Fitzpatrick, is one of a few big names within the sport who have voiced concerns over Monahan’s stewardship.
‘I think is he the right man to do this deal?’ Fitzpatrick said to Sky Sports on Tuesday. ‘I don’t know. Probably not on paper. I think now he’s probably been in the mix of it all and knows what’s going on it would be hard for someone new to come in and get up to speed quickly.
‘So, there’s obviously that in your mind of whether someone could come in and do that so quickly.
‘I don’t know. Is he the right person? Probably not on paper. But here we are… It’s not like we’ve got a choice.’
The 2023 US Open champion, is not the only player to have expressed concerns over the commissioner’s stewardship of the historic tour, with Xander Schauffele also claiming Monahan has some way to go to retain his trust.
‘Trust is something that is pretty tender,’ Shauffele said. ‘Words are words. I’d say in my book, he’s got a long way to go.
‘He could be the guy, but he’s got a long way to go to gain the trust of the membership. I’m sure he’s got the trust of the board since they were with him making those decisions, but for me personally he’s got quite a way to go.’
