Is the PGA Tour biased? Some would agree. Time and again, pros and insiders have called out the Tour for favoring big names with initiatives like sponsor invites, PIP, and signature events. Now, joining the list is Lucas Glover‘s agent, Mac Barnhardt.

“I was friends with Jay when he was in my business. I was friends with Jay when he ran the tournament up in Boston. And had considered him a friend. But no, I don’t hear from him because I don’t have a player now of the caliber,” said Mac, joining Monday Q Info, revealing how, for the Tour, relationships are only mere transactions. “So, it’s almost non-existent in the last probably three to four years.”

As Barnhardt shared, allegedly, the PGA Tour only values connections that can reap them benefits. Whether that’s with the star power of their golfers or their performance and marketability. The Tour doesn’t have any interest in the inputs of agents that don’t translate into direct profit. When Barnhardt managed marquee golfers, including Davis Love and Justin Leonard, he maintained good relations with the then-commissioner Tim Finchem.

“I had an incredible relationship with Tim Finchem, mainly because I represented some of his top players—Davis Love, Justin Leonard, and Steve Pate—so my voice was listened to quite a bit back then,” Barnhardt revealed on the podcast.

“It’s kind of like it’s position power, everything we do. If you’re a manager in this business, you’re really good when they play well, and you really are no good and not listened to when they don’t play well,” Barnhardt quipped on the harsh reality.

“I think off the record, we have talked before about the fact that, you know, this is the third generation. This is a third generation. Jay was the third-generation owner of this little private company. And you know, if you go and look at historical data, 3% of third-generation companies survive to the fourth. Um, so it’s a tough hole when you have institutionalized leadership. You know, everybody kind of moved up,” Barnhardt explained.

This may go against the free, democratic spirit of a thriving institution, but even Tour has to be looked at like a business. There is a drawback to this bias as well. With marginalized voices, not only does the organization get limited in its perspective, but it also experiences a concentration of power at the apex of management. The limited perspective from mid-to-low-tier golfers and their associates doesn’t allow the Tour to engage in meaningful conversations and bring forth initiatives to benefit all.

Initiatives like signature events have been called out repeatedly. In fact, Lucas Glover has been one of the most vocal ones. “I’ve been on record as saying I was not a fan of these when they hatched the idea of them. I didn’t like them then, and I’ve been in most of them since they started, and I still don’t like them.” Glover once told the Golf Channel.

“How honest do you want me to be? I hate it,” said Erik Van Rooyen of Signature Events. “The strongest fields are the ones with the most players in them.”

Clearly, Mac Barnhardt is not the only voice that has openly criticized the PGA Tour for its opaque, unaccountable leadership.

Jay Monahan has faced immense backlash from Tour pros

In an interview with The Mirror, Andrew Chandler expressed how he believed the Tour made a strategic failure by refusing to engage with LIV Golf during its early stages. He argued that no one had innovated the traditional 72-hole format for decades and suggested that LIV’s alternative approach was overdue. Moreover, he went so far as to call the leadership “arrogant,” expressing how the Tour paid little significance to their inputs.

“For the PGA Tour not to sit down with LIV at any stage to discuss what they were trying to do, where they could possibly help, when there were billions of dollars going into golf was a very strange thing to do and a very arrogant thing to do,” added Chandler.

Even Viktor Hovland shared that he believes the PGA Tour, under Monahan, took serious missteps, which it failed to take accountability for. He also weighed in on the Tour’s new elevated “Signature Events” model, revealing his concerns that big-money events with a smaller field might destroy the competitive integrity of the circuit, echoing Lucas Glover’s sentiment.

As expected, Monahan paid no heed to these suggestions, reflecting the autocratic, totalitarian condition of the Tour. Further, even with Brian Rolapp in the office now, these criticisms continue to pour in. In the argument for these angry voices, the Tour is still taking no steps to address the concerns.