PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan Is Required To Fly Private, New Tax Filing Shows

The PGA Tour's 2021 tax filing showed a sizable increase in revenue compared to 2020, but that's not all it revealed. The Tour - a nonprofit - disclosed in its filing that commissioner Jay Monahan is required to fly private for all travel, both business and personal, due to security and privacy concerns.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the disclosure of Monahan flying private is new as in years past the Tour said that in "limited cases" top executives could "utilize charter or first class travel for business."

The latest tax filing mentions the Tour's own corporate jet for the first time while noting that the governing board requires Monahan to use charter flights for all travel purposes.

A report from September showed that Monahan had traveled on a Citation X jet owned by a PGA Tour subsidiary for personal trips to Nantucket, St. Lucia, and Steamboat Springs, Colorado among other places.

The PGA Tour's 2021 tax filing, which was signed in November, showed a 37% increase in revenue from 2020, which was largely impacted by the pandemic. The Tour reported $1.59 billion in 2021 compared to $1.16 billion in 2020.

While Monahan has been enjoying flying privately his pay took a bit of a hit year-over-year going from $14.2 million in 2020 to $13.9 million in 2021.

Every financial move the PGA Tour has made, and now this tax filing, has been put under a microscope given LIV Golf's emergence into the golf world. LIV Golf is operating with unlimited funds as it is backed by the Saudi public investment fund, but the Tour's latest filing shows it's not exactly having to count its pennies.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and all other happenings in the world of golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.