ATLANTA — ”I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters,” Bill Murray rants about the repetitiveness of his existence in the movie “Groundhog Day.” “That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over?”
Jay Monahan’s groundhog days also lack lobster, piña coladas and escapades worthy of frisky marine mammals. Instead, his involve press conferences in which he repeatedly declines to answer questions about the one subject folks wish to hear from him on: the state of negotiations with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. Wednesday brought another of those at East Lake Golf Club during the commissioner’s press briefing at the Tour Championship, the transcript of which will show considerable overlap with his last one, at the Players Championship in March, and with his appearance here last year. That Monahan has actually offered more detail on the talks than his PIF counterpart, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, counts for naught since MBS’s bag man doesn’t make himself available for questions and is held to different standards in many matters, not least transparency and accountability.
There were several topics Monahan was eager to discuss — his themes were “engagement, momentum and innovation” — but the focus was, predictably, on what he didn’t say. Or more accurately, what he wouldn’t say.
“As it relates to any details of the conversations that we’re having with the Public Investment Fund, I’m not going to disclose details. I’m not going to get into specifics.”
“I’m not going to negotiate details in public or disclose details or specifics. All I can say is that conversations continue, and they’re productive.”
“When you get into productive conversations, that enhances the likelihood of positive outcomes, and that enhances the spirit of those very conversations. I think that’s where things stand.”
The fact that Monahan won’t talk doesn’t mean there isn’t something to talk about. There’s a difference between being evasive and simply not being expansive. Sources familiar with the current state of the PIF discussions suggest there’s occasional activity but that any particulars are being laboriously lawyered. It’s also apparent that Monahan concerns himself with just one constituency: the Tour’s Policy Board, or more specifically, the player-directors on that body. He knows that unilateral…
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