Why Jay Monahan’s job as PGA Tour commissioner is more safe than ever

During Tuesday’s PGA Tour players’ meeting in Toronto, Tour pros called PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan a hypocrite and said it was time for new leadership. The latter remark drew a standing ovation.

This moment in time happened shortly after Monahan blindsided the players he works for by announcing an agreement brokered in secret to merge commercial interests in a newly formed business entity with the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the sole financier of the rival LIV Golf.

The optics following that meeting, which Monahan himself described as “heated” and “intense,” are that he’s in a tumultuous and weakened position. The knee-jerk reaction is to think Monahan has lost trust with the players and is a dead man walking.

But that is a short-sighted view, according to one former Tour pro.

“Survive?” he wrote in a text. “They are going to give him a raise and throw him a parade.”

The parade may have to wait several years for the anger to die down and for players to have been rewarded handsomely for being good soldiers during golf’s civil war. But the larger point is that Monahan’s in the strongest position he’s ever been in, which is hard to fathom after the beating he’s taken in the court of public opinion the last few days until you factor in that he’s CEO in the proposed for-profit enterprise and his only competitor is now his partner. He’s leading a new global golf entity and has two of his board members – chairman Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne – covering his flank.

“Can he survive it? He’s already come out on top. This is game, set, match,” said a former longtime PGA Tour executive, who knows the ins and outs of how the Tour operates. “Now we’re just dissecting the game: How was the Tour down two sets to one and all of a sudden they went 6-0, 6-0, we win. And, oh, by the way, the guy we just beat is going to be our new doubles partner.”

In this brave new world, Monahan and board members Herlihy and Dunne are at the top of the mountain. According to the press release announcing the deal, the Tour will hold the majority of the board seats. This was a power play, a turf grab and Monahan protected his job all under the flag of ‘this is the best for the game.’

It took the two board members,…