“Jay Monahan now faces his biggest task: winning back his players’ trust”

Well, who saw that coming? 

Absolutely no one, judging by the reaction to the news. 

In what is comfortably the biggest shock to world golf since the introduction of LIV Golf itself, the strategic alliance that makes up the PGA and DP World Tours have announced they are to get into bed with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in what they describe as “a landmark agreement to unify the game of golf”.   

If this was a WWE storyline, we would all say it was too far-fetched, so where do you even start picking apart this sort of news? 

The PGA Tour players, it seems, found out at the same time as us. Collin Morikawa – who was heavily linked with a move to LIV Golf in the early days despite consistently pledging his allegiance to the PGA Tour – was first out the blocks, simply writing: “I love finding out news on Twitter.” He was far from alone in this sentiment. 

And this was the case on both sides. Reports from the Saudi camp suggest that they were equally in the dark.  

Phil Mickelson teased us at last month’s PGA Championship when he said, “I know some things that others don’t.” – but that, it turns out, was just Phil being Phil. And conspiracy theorists might point to how the PGA Tour’s mouthpiece and staunchest defender Rory McIlroy suddenly flip from couldn‘t-talk-about-LIV-Golf-enough to didn’t-want-to-talk-about-LIV-Golf-at-all in a matter of days. Neither of them were in on it, though. But one is certainly happier than the other. 

He hasn’t spoken publicly yet, but one can only imagine McIlroy’s reaction to this news. He was hung out to dry time and time again while the man that should have been answering the questions hid behind his desk at PGA Tour HQ.   

But who cares if you’re Jay Monahan, right? Ultimately, he has got what he wants. He not only remains the most powerful man in world golf but has seen his organisation receive a monumental cash injection. And all he had to do was give the PIF what they have wanted all along – a seat at the sport’s top table. 

As for Monahan’s LIV Golf counterpart Greg Norman, who has allegedly been on borrowed time for a while now, it seems he didn’t know.   

Not only was he left off the list of names involved in the press release announcing the merger, the PIF’s governor and newly-appointed chairman of the merger, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, said he “made the call just before this interview” when asked if Norman was aware of the move. 

It’s safe to speculate the Australian won’t be having much more to do with this.  

But how long before his long-term nemesis Monahan joins him on the unemployment list? All this was on the table for him years ago, but he didn’t want to know. Then, when the Saudi moneymen went their own way, he sat in the commentary booth with Jim Nantz and asked LIV’s defectors and those considering offers a simple but cutting question: “Have you ever had to apologise for being a member of the PGA Tour?” 

The PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and PIF announce landmark agreement to unify men’s professional golf.

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 6, 2023

This sudden about face has left him facing imposing questions from those that matter most and, ultimately, it will come down to how the players react. Anecdotally, imagine how those who turned down tens or, in several cases, hundreds of millions to remain loyal to the PGA Tour are feeling right now – and that’s before we get to the rank-and-file whose careers now hang in the balance. 

Monahan’s soundbite – whether from his own mouth or those he sent out to fight his battles week after week – has always been “legacy, not leverage”, and he told the Financial Times in the wake of the news that he began to trust Al-Rumayyan “10 minutes after sitting down with him in Venice”, which seems like an easy thing to do with someone dangling a billion-dollar carrot in front of your face.   

He now faces the unenviable and perhaps impossible task of winning back the trust of the players.  

But while Monahan goes into firefighting mode, the civil war that has haunted our beautiful game for the past two years, it seems, is over. 

As for us fans, with a lack of answers come so many questions. 

There is no mention of the LIV Golf League in the communication released to the media – so it still a thing? Will the remaining events scheduled for the 2023 season be played? Will the players who resigned from the DP World Tour to join LIV Golf have their fines reimbursed? Will players now be allowed to wear shorts on the PGA Tour?  

And what does this mean for the Ryder Cup? Presumably everyone is now eligible to play in Rome, which means presumably one final shot at the Americans for the competition’s greatest ever player, Sergio Garcia, and presumably Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Henrik Stenson and Graeme McDowell back on the table as future European captains? 

All we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride.