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There were times when it felt like this day would never come. We had heard of PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem's impending exit for years, but it always seemed to be another year or another month or another few weeks away. Now, after 22 years at the helm of professional golf's best tour, it's here.

Starting Jan. 1, 2017 Jay Monahan will take over as PGA Tour commissioner for Finchem, the PGA Tour announced Monday.

"I have the highest regard for Jay and have total confidence in his ability to lead the PGA Tour well into the future," Finchem said Monday. "He has been a key member of the executive team since joining the Tour and has worked closely with me on all business matters since becoming Deputy Commissioner."

For Monahan this is a new beginning. For Finchem, who started in 1994, it is the ending of an incredible run that coincided with one of the great singular careers in golf history.

"[Tiger Woods] lifted all boats," Finchem said. "I always refer to it as kind of like Michael Jordan in the NBA. He just lifted boats and brought in so many new fans to the game and charged it."

"For me, as a fan, when he lapped the field at Pebble Beach [in the 2000 U.S. Open] by 15 shots or whatever, he had cemented the fact that he was in the best two or three players of all time," Finchem told Golf Digest. "I actually walked with him on the final round. If you go back and watch it, he might have hit one shot that day that wasn't pretty much exactly where he wanted to hit it. Every shot was underneath the hole, eight, 10 feet away. So I thought that was the exclamation point: OK, this guy's great, and that's going to last a long time."

Woods deflects the praise back to Finchem.

"In my opinion, his biggest impact, I think is the growth of the game and the healthiness of our sport," Woods told the PGA Tour. "He's taken our sport to another level ... not just the TV aspect but into the digital age.

"This is a totally different world and there are so many different platforms in which we can now participate and view golf and be part of the game of golf. And he was responsible for all that."

This much is true. Finchem brought in so much money to golf (although he was massively aided by Tiger). Here is the PGA Tour on just how much.

Official prize money has gone from $90.8 million on three Tours to $401.4 million on six. Charitable giving to the communities where those events are held reached a record $161 million last year and has far exceeded $2 billion overall.

Those are ludicrous numbers. You could also make the case that golf has never been healthier or more competitive. How could it not be with incentives like $401.4 million in prize money per year. You are attracting the greatest players in the world and more kids see golf as a way to "make it."

"The way the Tour looks in 2016 compared with when Tim got the chair, it's astonishing the difference," Geoff Ogilvy told PGATour.com. "It's been incredible. I guess on a global scale, the PGA Tour has always been the premium tour, but it's not even a decision anymore. It's just by far and away really the only place that anyone wants to play the best players in the world."

In short, Monahan, who is in his mid-40s and was appointed deputy commissioner back in 2014, has really big shoes to fill over the next decade or two.

"I am greatly honored by the trust the Policy Board has shown in me to succeed Tim Finchem as commissioner," Monahan said. "Under Tim's leadership, the PGA Tour has made remarkable progress, even in the most difficult economic times. We are now entering a very important time in our organization's history, and I know our executive team and I will draw upon and be inspired by the invaluable experience of working with Tim as we take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities, as well as face the challenges, that are ahead for the Tour."

That guy (Tiger) Finchem rode to heights unknown is apparently at the end of the line so yes, the challenges will be many. But Finchem could not have left him in a better spot for success.