Golf

Q&A with PGA Tour's Jay Monahan: 'It’s all about honor and integrity'


CROMWELL, Conn. — Playing in the final group on Sunday at the Travelers Championship, Dustin Johnson obliterated his tee shot on the first hole. As the ball went into the stratosphere, Chris Berman, a former ESPN personality and a member at TPC River Highlands, turned to his right and walked toward a silver-haired man standing well behind the teeing ground. It was PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who had come out to see the final few groups tee off before catching a flight back to Florida.

One of Monahan’s New Year’s resolutions this year was to wear sunscreen every day. He may not have been successful with it, but either way, he suggested moving into some shade before talking exclusively with Golfweek after a busy week in Connecticut.

Seven players withdrew from the Travelers Championship due to COVID-19 related situations. Cameron Champ and Denny McCarthy each tested positive, while Graeme McDowell, Brooks and Chase Koepka, Webb Simpson and Bud Cauley withdrew out of an abundance of caution after they thought they could have been near someone who tested positive. Each of those players tested negative, but Monahan felt compelled to talk with the media on Wednesday and field questions in a virtual press conference.

Dusek: On Tuesday, the practice areas did not look very different to me, but it felt like each day, players and caddies were taking more and more precautions, taking things related to COVID-19 more seriously. On Thursday, Zach Johnson came to the media area wearing a hat, sunglasses and a mask. Rory had a mask on walking off 18 green on Friday. Phil Mickelson’s brother and caddie, Tim Mickelson, was wearing a mask in the parking lot Sunday morning. I didn’t see anything like that on Tuesday and Wednesday. When you spoke to the media on Wednesday, were you also talking to the players and caddies? Is that fair to assume?

Monahan: Look, any time you have an opportunity to talk with the media, and answer questions from the media, you realize that you are representing the membership. Anything that I would say to you, I would say to them.

When you talk about Brooks withdrawing, Graeme withdrawing, Bud withdrawing, Chase withdrawing. … all after testing negative, but withdrawing out of deference to the field after recognizing that they were in close contact with a caddie that tested positive, I’m going to withdraw. To me, that’s the nature of the game that we play. It’s all about honor and integrity. Couple that with Nick Watney in Hilton Head raising his hand and saying I don’t feel right, the fact that players are demonstrating that level of respect for their peers, I think that has set a tone here that has ramped everything up to another level. They deserve the credit for that. By our protocols, they could have continued.

Paul Casey said in his press conference this week that old habits are hard to break and golf is full of traditions. How do you, the PGA Tour, as an organization try to get guys to break old habits and start new ones right now?

We have a team of people who work very closely with our players and are constantly communicating with them and communicating with them what we see. It’s less about here’s what we’re seeing and here’s what to do; the plan that we created was made in concert with our players. Now, we’re getting real-time feedback on what’s working and what’s not.

During events?

Absolutely. It’s fairly constant. I think as we call came back in Ft. Worth and Hilton Head, we’d all been away from each other for 90 days. We’ve talked about the plan, we asked the players to read the plan. We’ve taken the caddies through it on conference calls. Reinforcing, reinforcing. But if you have done certain things a certain way for a long time, and now you are coming back and everything is different. … we know if would be an adjustment. We just had to commit to trying to identify the areas where we were having a hard time, like fist bumps. And by the way, I came into Hilton Head and hadn’t seen some of these guys in a long time and it’s fist bumps, elbows. … but now I think you see that after three weeks, things becoming more steady state. I have been here for several days, watching, and I continue to see improvement.

A PGA Tour event, right now, is a unique place because you know the majority of the people around you have been tested over the last few days for COVID-19. With that in mind, and with the familiarity that the players have with each other, with caddies and with tournament surroundings, was created a false sense of security?

They came back to an atmosphere that was very different than what they were experiencing at home. None of us were operating this way, regardless of where we were, so we set the protocols, and the first week we expected that there would be an adjustment and that it would be a hard adjustment. We did a lot of positive things and recognized some things that we needed to improve upon. We’re sustaining our return. You don’t have a perfect week.

I think you could argue that having no positive tests in Ft. Worth set up an expectation level that the PGA Tour was not going to be achievable week to week.

Correct.

If you had one positive test there, then none last week on Hilton Head, and then another positive here, that could have set up more reasonable expectations. Would you agree?

Listen, it’s hard to predict where this is going to go, and there are people who have dedicated their lives to studying viruses and studying pandemics, and those are the people we are relying on. We are doing everything we can to mitigate that risk. We are going to have more positive tests. It’s going to happen. Every one of them, you heard me say it the other day, is painful. We are doing everything we can to prevent that from happening.

Have you talked with the people who have tested positive?

Yes, I have talked with a number of them. That goes back to one, they are a part of our family, and two, that’s how you learn.

If Nick Watney hadn’t shared his experience with Whoop with you, the new relationship would not have happened.

Correct, and that’s something that we weren’t considering. Whoop is something that every player and caddie on the tour now has.

I think it’s fair to say that if you don’t have any (positive tests), you think you might always not have any. That was never our belief. I wish I could say it otherwise.



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