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

Published•Updated

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.

PGA Tour Announces Major Changes For 2023, Finally Punch Back At LIV

Jay Monahan has been the PGA Tour commissioner since 2017. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

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.

Follow Mark Harris on Twitter @ItIsMarkHarris

Tags
Written by

Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, but wants it on the record that he does not bleed orange. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets, including BroBible, SB Nation, and The Spun. Mark also wrote for the Chicago Cubs' Double-A affiliate in 2016, the year the curse was broken. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.