PGA Tour boss provides LIV Golf merger update after Phil Mickelson’s sack demand

Phil Mickelson called on the Jay Monahan to be removed from his PGA Tour leadership role, but it appears the commissioner is here to stay amid the pending framework agreement

Jay Monahan has shielded his choice to unite the PGA Visit with the Public Venture Asset of Saudi Arabia (PIF), with pressure proceeding to develop on the magistrate.

Monahan is the man at the focal point of the system understanding presently being haggled by the PGA Visit and PIF, which will see the American-based circuit end their fight with the LIV Golf. The arrangement declaration came as a shock to numerous in June, and from that point forward the Visit magistrate has confronted analysis for his Saudi u-turn.

Monahan however is more than confident in the decisions he has made. “People have made far more consequential decisions than the one that I’ve made and ultimately, the one that we’re going to make,” he said at the New York Times DealBook Summit.

“You have to look out over the horizon, you have to believe in your heart of hearts that what you’re committing to is the right decision. And you have to be willing to take all the criticism, and there has been a lot of it, and it will continue to be more.”

One of his biggest critics has been LIV loyalist Phil Mickelson, and he reinstated this point when calling on Monahan to step aside from his position on social media earlier this week. “In addition to strong arming LIV players, losing trust with his players, and all credibility with his staff, golf is in this situation entirely because of him,” Mickelson tweeted.

“There’s no unity or path forward with him involved in my opinion as well.” Monahan’s role continue’s to be an important one though, and on Wednesday revealed he would be meeting with PIF boss Yasir Al-Rumayyan with the framework agreement’s December 31 deadline looming.

“The deadline for our conversations with PIF, as you know, is a firm target,” Monahan commented. “I’ll be with Yasir next week. And we continue to advance our conversations. And I think it’s pretty well known that there’s a large number of other interested parties that we’re also pushing to think about.”

Questions have been projected over golf’s proposed truce as of late, with various different elements keen on working with the Visit beside PIF, including Fenway Sports Gathering. Monahan however sees a future where all gatherings can be engaged with the circuit’s for-benefit element.

He added: “When this gets concluded. the PGA Visit will be in a place that … the competitors are proprietors in their game, and you have the PIF, yet you’ve probably got another co-financial backer, with huge involvement with business, in game and brand that will assist with taking the PGA Visit to another level and assist us with taking offer from different games and, surprisingly, be more serious.”