Joseph William "Jay" Monahan IV (born May 7, 1970) is the fourth and current commissioner of

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

. He ascended to this position in January

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Early years

Monahan was born and raised in Belmont, Massachusetts, a suburb northwest of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. Following graduation from Belmont High School, he did a post graduate year at

Lawrenceville School The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational preparatory school for boarding and day students located in the Lawrenceville section of Lawrence Township, in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. Lawrenceville is a member of the Eight Scho ...

in New Jersey. Monahan was immersed in the sport of golf as a child and went on to play

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

golf and

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was an Academic All-American in his senior season under golf coach Bill Detrick. He graduated with a history degree in 1993 and then earned a master's degree in sports management from the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

in 1995.

Early career

Monahan worked at

IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...

Worldwide where he played an integral role in the development of the

Deutsche Bank Championship The Dell Technologies Championship was a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour in Norton, Massachusetts, United States, held annually in late summer over the Labor Day weekend. The 2018 edition was the last time the event was staged as th ...

TPC Boston TPC Boston is a private golf club in the northeastern United States, located in Norton, Massachusetts, approximately south of Boston. History Originally designed by Arnold Palmer and built in 2002, the course was re-designed in 2007 by Gil Han ...

Norton Norton may refer to: Places Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada * Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan *Norton Parish, New Brunswick **Norton, New Brunswick, a ...

, and served as the tournament’s first director at age 32. In 2003, Monahan co-created Golf Fights Cancer, a charity that has raised nearly $5 million for cancer research. Later, he worked in sales for the

Fenway Sports Group Fenway Sports Group Holdings, LLC (FSG), is an American multinational sports holding conglomerate who own Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox, Premier League club Liverpool F.C., and the National Hockey League's Pittsburgh Penguins. FSG wa ...

(FSG) in Boston.

PGA Tour

In June

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, Monahan came to the PGA Tour as the executive director of

The Players Championship The Players Championship (commonly known as simply The Players, stylized by the PGA Tour as The PLAYERS Championship) is an annual golf tournament on the PGA Tour. Originally known as the Tournament Players Championship, it began in 1974. The ...

, and was named the Tour’s Senior Vice President for Business Development in 2010. He was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer in March

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

, overseeing business development, corporate marketing and partnerships, title sponsor relations, retail licensing, and media sales. Monahan served as Deputy Commissioner for two years and then became the Chief Operating Officer. PGA Tour commissioner

Tim Finchem Timothy W. Finchem (born April 19, 1947) is an American lawyer and retired golf administrator, who served as commissioner of golf's PGA Tour from 1994 to 2016. He served in the White House for two years during the administration of President J ...

announced his retirement in 2016 on November 7, and Monahan officially took over as commissioner two months later in January 2017. In February 2022, Monahan received a letter from the

LIV Golf LIV Golf () is a professional golf tour financed by the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. The name "LIV" refers to the Roman numerals for 54, the score if every hole on a par-72 course were birdied and the number ...

CEO

Greg Norman Gregory John Norman AO (born 10 February 1955) is an Australian entrepreneur and retired professional golfer who spent 331 weeks as world number one in the 1980s and 1990s. He won 89 professional tournaments, including 20 PGA Tour tournament ...

. The letter detailed how players "were and still are interested in playing for a new league, in addition to the PGA Tour." Norman stated that he wanted the leagues to co-exist, to which Monahan responded that he "doesn't want that at all." After the creation and completion of several LIV Golf events, the

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

launched an investigation into potential monopolization and anticompetitive behavior on behalf of the PGA Tour.

Personal

Monahan and his wife Susan have two daughters; they reside in

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida Ponte Vedra Beach is a wealthy unincorporated seaside community and suburb of Jacksonville, Florida in St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Located southeast of downtown Jacksonville and north of St. Augustine, it is part of the Jackson ...

, near Tour headquarters and home of The Players Championship (

TPC Sawgrass The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass (TPC at Sawgrass) is a golf course in the southeastern United States, located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, southeast of Jacksonville. Opened in the autumn of 1980, it was the first of several Tournament ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Monahan, Jay PGA Tour commissioners Trinity College (Connecticut) alumni Isenberg School of Management alumni Lawrenceville School alumni Belmont High School (Massachusetts) alumni People from Belmont, Massachusetts People from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida 1970 births Living people