'It's product versus product': PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan on rival league LIV Golf

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan described a landscape Sunday of two rival leagues going down different paths, even as the PGA Tour is still trying to formulate plans for a revamped structure in 2024.

"We're at a point now where it's product versus product," Monahan said.

He spoke in a formal setting for the first time since the Tour Championship in August, when he outlined a 2023 schedule of elevated tournaments that average $20 million US in prize money.

LIV Golf does not resume until Feb. 23-26 at Mayakoba Golf Resort in Mexico, which had hosted a PGA Tour event every year since 2007. The prize fund at each LIV event is $25 million, with $5 million directed toward a team competition.

Including bonuses, Dustin Johnson made just over $35.6 million in eight events.

Since the Tour Championship, the PGA Tour suspended six more players — including British Open champion Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann — for signing deals to play with LIV Golf. Smith would have been the defending champion this week at Kapalua.

Outside the ropes, there's the matter of LIV's antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour, and the tour's countersuit against LIV. The original lawsuit filed in August is not set for trial until January 2024, with a deadline to file for summary judgment at the end of June.

Monahan said he can only pay attention to what the PGA Tour is doing.

"We have our schedule. We've laid it out and we're going to keep getting better and better and better," Monahan said. "They have theirs. And we're going to continue to be the most pro-competitive, aspirational tour in men's professional golf.

"What they have is very different from what we have," he said. "We're going down our path, and they're going down theirs."

LIV Golf is known