PGA Tour power shift underway with commissioner Jay Monahan moving on soon
GOLF.com reported on Monday that the tour plans to 'sunset' commissioner Jay Monahan at some point before the end of next year with incoming CEO Brian Rolapp taking over his power after a transition period.
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Monahan has faced criticism for his handling of LIV Golf, with the rebel league taking some of the biggest names in the sport away from the PGA Tour.
Monahan initially took a hard stance on LIV, essentially banning any player from the PGA Tour who left for the huge guaranteed contracts being handed out by the Saudi-funded league.
Jay Monahan congratulates Rory McIlroy after winning The Players Championship in March 2025. Getty Images
Then, in June 2023, he shockingly announced a deal with PIF — the financial arm of Saudi Arabia — and revealed that a framework of a deal was in place that could possibly merge LIV and the PGA.
Two years later, there is still no official deal, and Monahan has provided sparse details when asked about it during his limited media availabilities.
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'I think anything that I've said or we said, the three of us said, is consistent with what should be said when you're in the middle of a complex discussion to try and reunify the game of golf,' Monahan said in March, per GOLF.com. 'It doesn't speak to my confidence level. It speaks to the moment. I view that meeting as a huge step and so I look at that very positively. We had a recent meeting with the President, the Public Investment Fund, thought it was a constructive meeting.
'And we're thankful for the President for his leadership, extremely thankful for him, for his willingness to host us in the Oval Office, and to help us continue those conversations. I feel like if you look at his commentary last week as ultimately seeing a deal happening and Yasir Al-Rumayyan's comments at the FII about the good meeting that we had, I think we'll just continue to move forward on those conversations.'
Brian Rolapp was recently named the CEO of the PGA Tour. Jim Rassol-Imagn Images
Barring significant progress in the coming months, it will now fall on Rolapp — who was previously a top executive with the NFL — to figure out how to get the biggest names in the sport competing against each other beyond the four majors.
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'[Brian] is coming from a place where the biggest brands and the biggest stars compete against each other as much as possible in the most high-profile time slots on the biggest platforms to drive the most interesting viewership,' a network exec told GOLF.com. 'The Tour needs help in that regard.'
Monahan, 55, came to the PGA in 2008 after working at Fenway Sports Group and took over as commissioner in 2016 when Tim Finchem stepped down.
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