Jordan Spieth hits his tee shot on the eighth hole during the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
Here Hahn describes why he felt that his voice wasn’t being heard by the board, and he threatened to resign from the board before being talked out of that by a Tour executive.
“So here’s where the power of influence, the power of someone’s on-course excellence means more in those meetings than the correct opinion,” he said. “I’ve been saying the same exact thing about Patrick Cantlay. He won the FedEx Cup and didn’t get any PIP money. And I said that in the meeting and nothing happens. Well, guess what? Patrick Cantlay gets (elected to the board and gets) in those meetings. He says something very similar, that he’d rather play for it. And they listened to him. Why would they listen to him and not me? The message is the same. It’s because he has a higher world ranking than I do, he has won more golf tournaments than I have, his net worth is triple what I’m worth. Does any of that even matter when the message is the same and it’s the correct message?
“It happened before when Jordan Spieth was on the board that the (four independent directors) listen to players that have a higher world rank than those who don’t. That’s just my personal experience.
“After my first year on the board, I wanted to resign because I didn’t feel like my voice was being heard. I felt that they were listening to Jordan, which granted, he’s very, very smart, very well spoken. He articulates his words in a way that I could never and he gets his message across. He’s a very likable person in those meetings. On and off the course, I have nothing but the most respect for Jordan. But you can see how when he talks that everyone’s eyes in the room just glimmer like he’s the prom queen, and everyone wants to ask her out for the dance. When Jordan would talk to an executive in the board meetings, that (independent director) started blushing, ‘Oh, my gosh, Jordan’s talking to me. How awesome is this?’
“So, they talked me out of resigning and said this is exactly why we need you on the board. Because we need you to speak up and I say, ‘Well, how do I speak up when you guys don’t listen? Why should I be on board? You already have your agenda. Everything’s already been written out. We already know what’s going on and you guys are more interested in this small…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golfweek…