After more than a year of high-stakes jockeying and long-distance accusations, Jay Monahan and Yasir al-Rumayyan finally met in May, an arranged blind date in some Venice cafe or hotel.
Now the oddest of bedfellows will attempt to remake the future of professional golf and repair the damage done by a yearlong civil war they had once waged against each other.
The 53-year-olds in charge could not be more different: Monahan, the American commissioner of the PGA Tour since 2017, and al-Rumayyan, the trusted confidant of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and overseer of his country’s massive Public Investment Fund.