PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan will compete in next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, The Forecaddie has learned. Monahan will be paired with PGA Tour rookie Harry Higgs.
“Well, he better bring some game,” Higgs said of The Commish, a single-digit handicap who reportedly has been taking lessons for his second appearance in the Tour’s flagship pro-am.
Last year, Monahan had his dad, Joe, on the bag and partnered with rookie Keith Mitchell.
“I’m certainly far more nervous out here trying to make a 10-foot putt than anything else I do professionally,” Monahan said after his opening round at Monterey Peninsula Country Club last year. “My hands were heavier than they’ve ever been before.”
The father-son dynamic remains intact, but with a twist. Monahan’s dad, a 76-year-old lawyer out of Boston, is scheduled to play with Mitchell, which led Monahan to ask his former partner who should be their fourth?
“By some miracle, my name came up,” Higgs tells The Forecaddie.
Higgs said he met The Commish at a Korn Ferry Tour players advisory committee meeting last year and during the rookie dinner at the RSM Classic, but he’s never played any of the three Pebble Beach courses in the tournament rotation. (The only course he’s played on the Monterey Peninsula is Cypress Point — #jealous — prior to The Western Intercollegiate.)
Higgs cracked that his celebrity pairing would mean the TV cameras might give him some love. But the rookie is off to a promising start, including a runner-up finish at the Bermuda Championship and T-9 last week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
“I’m going to have fun regardless,” Hicks said. “By the end of the week I’m going to be Commissioner, myself. Jay’s going to be so tired of dealing with us he’s going to quit.”
