CROMWELL, Conn. — The Travelers Championship has marked an inflection point for the PGA Tour multiple times in the past few years. 

The Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit launched in June 2022, poaching notable names from the Tour and with lucrative guaranteed contracts. Two weeks later at TPC River Highlands, the golf world’s eyes were on Connecticut. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan called an emergency press conference on Wednesday, 24 hours after a players’s meeting. That same day, it was announced that Brooks Koepka was joining the rival league. 

“I am not naive,” Monahan said at the podium that day. “If this is an arms race and if the only weapons here are dollar bills, the PGA Tour can’t compete. The PGA Tour, an American institution, can’t compete with a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in attempt to buy the game of golf.”

A little more than a year later Monahan and the Tour would roll out its signature event model, among other changes, to pump its players with cash if they didn’t defect to LIV. 

Last week, exactly three years later, there was a hint of déjà vu at TPC River Highlands, although the script has completely flipped. 

On Tuesday in Connecticut, Monahan appeared with Tiger Woods, who has never played the Travelers, and Brian Rolapp, a longtime NFL executive who was officially announced as the Tour’s chief executive officer, a new position in which he will run day-to-day operations. 

It was revealed Monahan would be stepping down in 2026. 

In almost exactly three years, how did we get here?

Back at that 2022 Travelers presser, Monahan was asked if he could ever see a scenario in which the Tour would work with LIV in a global structure.

“We’re going down our path,” Monahan said. “We’re going to continue to go down our path. We’re excited about what we've announced today. And there’s more exciting news to come. And we're going to do it as a Tour, as a collective, and with a group of members that are squarely behind their Tour.

Less than a year later, he went back on his word, famously appearing next to LIV Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan on CNBC on June 6, 2023 to announce a "framework agreement" for the PGA Tour to work together with LIV Golf on a new, for-profit entity. Many players who were kept in the dark about the agreement were furious. And the relationship between the players and Tour leadership was permanently strained. 

“I don’t trust people easily,” Xander Schauffele said at the 2023 British Open. “[Monahan] had my trust and he has a lot less of it now.”

But there was a contrast in Connecticut this year compared to three years ago. Then, there was anxiety, uncertainty and irritation about the trajectory of the PGA Tour. 

Now, there’s optimism. 

Rolapp oversaw the NFL commercial businesses, including broadcast and digital rights and was once considered a prime candidate to succeed Roger Goodell. 

“I think our board and Jay and everybody put a lot of research into finding his successor,” Scottie Scheffler said in his pre-tournament presser, “and to be able to get somebody from the NFL, especially somebody high up at the NFL, I think is pretty cool. The NFL is obviously a very successful organization. He’s got a lot of experience and some new thought processes he can bring to the Tour, and I think it's exciting.”

Rolapp might have to clean up some of Monahan’s missteps. It's also possible that a deal with the Saudis never happens. LIV appears to be far from a profitable business model, and the Tour received a $1.5 billion investment from SSG in 2024. 

“I’m not close enough to any of those discussions (with LIV Golf),” Rolapp said last Tuesday regarding the framework agreement, “but I will say what I saw regardless of that is a very strong Tour. I see a strong product. I see strong golfers. I think the signature events have been a huge and important progression in the sport. 

“So I see strength that, just don't take my word for it, look at the underlying fundamentals; they’re strong. I think that really speaks to some of the changes that have been made in the last few years.”

Many of those changes were a reactionary move to LIV’s inception and revealed to the world in 2022 at TPC River Highlands. But the Tour’s turbulence since that fateful day in Cromwell was a self-inflicted wound. 

So the healing process led Tour leadership back to Connecticut last week, marking a fresh start for the world’s top golf circuit. 

If all goes according to Rolapp’s plan, the focus ahead of the upcoming Travelers—and every Tour event for that matter—will be birdies and bogeys. 


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Travelers Championship Was Again a Pivot Point for Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour.

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