PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem at the end of this season is expected to retire and "most likely will turn the keys over" to Deputy Commissioner & COO Jay Monahan, who will "inherit one of the most robust properties in professional sports," according to Cameron Morfit of SI GOLF PLUS. But Monahan also will be inheriting a "large and sometimes unwieldy house that will require constant upkeep." Monahan will have to decide where to take Miami's World Golf Championship, with Cadillac "declining to re-up, and the host course, Trump Doral, owned by the radioactive" Donald Trump. Monahan also will have a decision "when the FedEx sponsorship expires" at the end of '17. Former PGA Tour player Joe Ogilvie said that Monahan's tour "also must strengthen its partnerships with the PGA of America, the USGA and other governing bodies to grow the game." Morfit notes that "will make up only part of the commissioner's to-do list." The Tour is "sometimes perceived as having failed to take drug testing seriously." Monahan also will be tasked with continuing to "line up a full slate of sponsors for the Web.com and Champions tours." This year the PGA Tour Champions "added events in California, Virginia and Wisconsin, but while purses on that tour have gone up," since '10 they have "failed to keep pace with inflation." Ogilvie, who has served on the Tour's policy board, said that Monahan "will have to shore up the main TV deal," which is "costing players money." Ogilvie's assessment is "based on recent sports-television deals, specifically the 12-year Fox-USGA pact, which was said to be worth" $100M a year when it was announced in '13. Ogilvie: "The Tour left $700 million to $1 billion on the table when it did the deal with Golf Channel" (SI GOLF PLUS, 5/9 issue).
PUTTING THEIR HEADS TOGETHER: CBS golf analyst Dottie Pepper at last week's Wells Fargo Championship discussed the PGA Tour-LPGA alliance, noting there will be a "better understanding of where the tours are going short-term and long-term scheduling-wise." Pepper said, "A couple of times, when I was doing Solheim Cups for Golf Channel, they were the same week as the Tour Championship, so all the stories are so watered down and the attention isn't focused where it should be." Pepper said there also are "database things that they can share between each other as organizations, and that goes for the PGA of America as well." Pepper: "They have come so far with their relationship with the LPGA that they now have a major championship together. So I think from a communications standpoint, from a forward-planning, from a resources (standpoint), it is a win for both" (Jordan Jackson, THE DAILY).
