A deep dive inside the PGA Tour's mandatory Town Hall meeting with new CEO Brian Rolapp

USA Today

a day ago

DETROIT – Storm clouds rolled over Detroit Golf Club on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the arrival of the PGA Tour's new CEO Brian Rolapp.
The former NFL executive, who met the field of 72 in a no-cut, $20-million purse signature event last Tuesday at the Travelers Championship, continued his Town Hall meetings with the 156-man field at this week's Rocket Classic.
The mandatory players meeting was scheduled for 5 p.m. ET, but just after 3 o'clock the horn blew, closing the course, and with only so many cold plunges to go around, the clubhouse filled with antsy players with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Eventually, the Tour sent out a text that they were moving the meeting up 30 minutes. Adam Schenk didn't get the memo and had gone to the grocery store.
'I thought I got there a minute early, but I missed the first half hour,' he said.
More: Who is Brian Rolapp? 5 things to know about the PGA Tour's new CEO
That included hearing remarks from Commissioner Jay Monahan, who kicked things off and kept his portion, which Matt Kuchar described as feeling 'like a state of the union,' brief and focused on the Tour's bright future. Sam Kennedy, representing Strategic Sports Group, which has invested $1.5 billion in the Tour's new for-profit entity, had the floor next. Zach Johnson and other pros had nothing but glowing things to say about Kennedy, who is highly-regarded for his work as the president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball and CEO of Fenway Sports Group.
Peter Malnati offered 'impassioned' speech on PGA Tour
Then it was the turn of Camilo Villegas, who is still in the honeymoon phase as a player director, having assumed his seat when Jordan Spieth's term expired at the end of the year, and Peter Malnati spoke on behalf of the players. In Hartford, it had been Adam Scott and Tiger Woods filling that role. Multiple players referenced Malnati's speech, which Mark Hubbard described as 'impassioned' and Kuchar said felt like 'an apology.'
Malnati began by saying that he ran for the board to protect playing opportunities and to keep the Tour from getting smaller on his watch. During his tenure, both of those things transpired, nonetheless.
'But because I was on the inside and saw the thought process, saw the planning, I could see how it truly was creating a stronger Tour from both a sponsorship standpoint and an overall holistic health of the Tour standpoint, and that even though it hurts, that opportunities are gone, that is what is best for all the members to ensure the long-term health of what we're doing,' he said.
New CEO Brian Rolapp has three questions for Tour players
Finally, it was time for Rolapp, 53, to speak, and he did his best to ingratiate himself.
'He's a fresh set of eyes,' Aaron Baddeley said. 'It's like having a new coach for your swing without pre-conceived ideas and not looking at all the things that are good and bad.'
'I think we got a real switched-on guy,' Hubbard said.
'From the handful of people I've talked to outside the PGA Tour, everyone says he's awesome. I'm a Jay Monahan fan. He's dealt with some crazy-hard things but I feel excellent about this guy," said Kuchar based on his interaction with Rolapp, whom he managed to collar for a 5-minute one-on-one.
Kuchar was one of several players who left impressed that Rolapp promised to speak to 100 members before he even starts officially as CEO this summer and intends to speak to the entire membership during his first month on the job. He told them he would ask them each three questions:
'I thought it was awesome to hear that from the new guy,' Kuchar said. 'He had no agenda, he's an outsider trying to figure it out. What a great way to start.'
Rolapp didn't delve too deep into his game plan, which he will need time to formulate before unveiling at a future date, but he did express the importance of the Tour's next media rights negotiations, which expire at the end of 2030. According to players in the room, he said that five years away may seem far off, but it isn't and it will take time to plot a strategy. He reiterated that is where the Tour's bread is butter.
'Just look at his track record and what he did at the NFL and with the media stuff and that's important for us with (media rights negotiations) coming up in 2028,' said Villegas.
Q&A touched on LIV Golf negotiations
At last, it was time for the question-and-answer period. The hot topics were no surprise: LIV and playing opportunities/signature events. Beau Hossler didn't articulate a question as much as a general sentiment. He began by giving the Tour leadership credit for creating tangible positive momentum for the Tour – and then came the inevitable but – people at his home club in Dallas ask him what's going on with PIF and LIV. A player who attended the meeting recounted that Hossler said, 'I tell them I don't know anything more than you. That's frustrating for me as a member of the PGA Tour. I feel like I should know.'
Kuchar said he followed up with a LIV question and was told that the two sides are at loggerheads with no resolution in sight. The Tour refuses to capitulate on certain matters, especially Yasir Al-Rumayyan's obsession with the team concept and his refusal to budge on having it be a future component as part of any deal.
'I don't think it's any breaking news that the talks have gone silent. They said we're still open to negotiations,' Kuchar said, and wondered if perhaps a new voice in Rolapp can rekindle the talks. But he took the opposite approach to Hossler on being kept in the dark on the state of negotiations. Kuchar said he'd rather not know how the sausage is being made.
'There's some things I understand the sensitivity of – like I don't want to know some of the decisions we make politically for the US. I get the feeling that both sides still want to do something but I also think we're at a stalemate,' he said.
Aaron Baddeley asked about playing opportunities
Several players mentioned a question posed by Baddeley to Monahan as being the most pertinent for the rank-and-file players that made up the majority of the membership in the room. With Tour cards being reduced to 100 and the number of return trips via Korn Ferry Tour trimmed from 30 to 20, livelihoods are going to be at stake.
Baddeley asked if the goal of the signature events is to get the top guys playing together more often. The FedEx point differential and the advantage of being in the signature events are significant enough that many top pros end up playing a more limited schedule. He noted that Viktor Hovland played only one non-major or signature event and still made the 2024 Tour Championship.
'It was kind of what I expected," said Justin Lower, who didn't think the question by Baddeley was answered to his satisfaction. 'I don't think the Tour will ever really answer that question. It just seems like the Tour gets the ideas together, sets it in stone, practices it for a couple of years and adjusts from there. I think there will be an adjustment soon when it comes to [signature] events, but I don't know what that adjustment will be or when it will happen. I think 100 would be good.'
"Everyone in the room there would like to see some tweaks to it," Kuchar said. "It sounds like they are open to it and they are always trying to make it better. We're tweaking the Tour Championship format, so why not change the field size of the signature events," he said.
'It's a double-edged sword,' Hubbard said. 'The top players need to play more, but if they only play the big events, how do we keep tournaments like this and grow? Jay gave a very political response. We can't get a straight answer from him, and that's why a lot of people are fed up with him."
At 5:50 p.m., players streamed out of the clubhouse. The storm had subsided, the sun peeked out and the practice facility opened for the likes of Hossler. As many headed for their cars or practiced the next day, a reporter sidled over and asked if they felt better, worse or the same than before the Town Hall meeting. From a small sample size, there was one 'waste of time,' an equal number were bullish on Rolapp and a majority who felt no change. Leave it to Hubbard to sum up the sentiment inside the room. 'I didn't leave feeling like we're getting screwed,' Hubbard said.
That's a start and part of the beauty of having new leadership with fresh eyes.