Mark Flaherty resigns from PGA Tour’s policy board

Mark Flaherty resigned from the PGA Tour’s coverage board on Sunday, turning into the second unbiased director to step down in lower than every week.

On Monday, unbiased director Jimmy Dunne, who helped negotiate the PGA Tour’s framework settlement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding fund final yr, resigned, successfully instantly.

In Dunne’s resignation letter to PGA Tour members, he wrote that “no significant progress has been made in the direction of a transaction with PIF” and that “my vote and my position is totally superfluous” now that participant administrators outnumber unbiased administrators on the coverage board.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan despatched a memo to PGA Tour members Sunday evening, informing them of Flaherty’s resignation. Flaherty is a former vice chairman of Wellington Administration, an funding administration firm.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve on the Coverage Board for the previous 4 1⁄2 years,” Flaherty wrote in a letter to board administrators. “Golf has all the time been a big a part of my life. Having the ability to mix my ardour for the game with the intricate workings and progress of the PGA Tour has been a really rewarding expertise.”

There are three unbiased administrators left on the coverage board: chairman Ed Herlihy, Joe Gorder and Mary Meeker.

Tiger Woods was added as a sixth participant director final yr, becoming a member of Patrick Cantlay, Peter Malnati, Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Jordan Spieth.

The framework settlement with the PIF expired Dec. 31, however the sides have continued to barter. Monahan and the participant director met with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan within the Bahamas on March 18.

Rory McIlroy tried to re-join the coverage board lately — Simpson would have stepped down — however he mentioned different participant administrators had been uncomfortable with him returning after he stepped down Nov. 14.

On the PGA Championship on Wednesday, McIlroy mentioned he was much less assured the tour would attain an settlement with the PIF after Dunne’s resignation.

“Yeah, actually, I believe it is an enormous loss for the PGA Tour, if they’re making an attempt to get this deal executed with the PIF and making an attempt to unify the sport,” McIlroy mentioned.

“Jimmy was principally the connection, the form of conduit between the PGA Tour and PIF. It has been actually unlucky that he has not been concerned for the previous few months, and I believe a part of the explanation that every little thing is stalling on the minute is due to that.”

On his Sirius XM present final week, longtime PGA Tour member Lucas Glover mentioned golfers should not have a lot management of the tour’s operations.

“We do have the bulk and we have now no enterprise having the bulk,” Glover mentioned. “Tour gamers play golf. Businessmen run [businesses]. They do not inform us tips on how to hit 7-irons. We should not be telling them tips on how to run a enterprise. And we’re operating a enterprise now.”