OUT OF BOUNDS! The Open kicks Trump into rough
DONALD TRUMP will be denied his dream of staging the Open at Turnberry after the R&A ruled out his golf course on political grounds. Confirmation that the Ayrshire links will be overlooked came a few hours after the President’s Bedminster course was stripped of next year’s US PGA Championship. The snubs on both sides of the Atlantic are a response to Trump supporters storming Capitol Hill last week, though the rioting was not directly mentioned by either authority.
Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A, said: ‘We had no plans to stage any of our championships at Turnberry and will not do so in the foreseeable future. ‘We will not return until we are convinced that the focus will be on the championship, the players and the course itself, and we do not believe that is achievable in current circumstances.’ Turnberry has not staged the Open since Trump, whose mother was Scottish, bought it seven years ago. The last time was in 2009, when Stewart Cink beat Tom Watson in a play-off. The course is not included in the list of venues that have been allocated up to 2024. Slumbers’ statement represents a hardening of his position. Last February he said that while the R&A should look to keep their prime tournament away from politics he was sure Turnberry would ‘stage an Open in the not too distant future’. The R&A were prompted into action after the PGA of
America’s announcement on Sunday that they were dropping the Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey. President Jim Richerson said: ‘It has become clear that conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand. It would put at risk the PGA’s ability to deliver our programmes and sustain the longevity of our mission.’ In response, the Trump Organisation said they had
enjoyed a ‘beautiful partnership’ with the PGA and were ‘incredibly disappointed’ by the decision. They added: ‘We have invested many, many millions of dollars in the 2022 PGA Championship.’ It is the second time in six years the PGA have taken an event away from a Trump-owned course. The 2015 Grand Slam of Golf was moved from the Trump National in Los Angeles after controversial remarks he made on the campaign trail about Mexican immigrants.
The R& A stood shoulder to shoulder with the PGA of America yesterday. A few hours after the latter body stripped Donald Trump’s Bedminster course in New Jersey of hosting the PGA Championship next year, the R&A confirmed the Open will not be going to Trump Turnberry either ‘for the foreseeable future’.
Finally, the game is addressing its damaging relationship with Trump. Nothing in golf in recent years has elicited a greater sense of shame and embarrassment than the hideous kowtowing to a deranged American president.
even last Wednesday, when Trump incited a riot in the citadel of American democracy, two of the sport’s most decorated names, Gary Player and Annika Sorenstam, still could not do the right thing.
Place yourself in their shoes. You are in a hotel room on the eve of receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour. You switch on the television to witness the white supremacists, egged on by their commander-in-chief.
Sorenstam and Player still went to the ceremony. Down the road from the Capitol where a police officer lost his life, they still accepted their medals from the man who orchestrated the lawlessness.
No wonder, therefore, Sunday’s announcement by the PGA of America to cancel the Bedminster contract was greeted with sweet, merciful relief. As was the hard-hitting statement explaining the decision, making it clear that any association with Trump ‘would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand’.
Their president, Jim Richerson, added: ‘It would have put at risk the PGA’s ability to deliver our many programmes and sustain the longevity of our mission.’
So, is this the moment when golf starts draining the swamp? When it starts socially distancing itself from the blowhard who represents an era of the game that most right-thinking golfers want to leave behind?
It is certainly an important first step. The PGA of America represent the nation’s 29,000 club professionals. Their message, therefore, is the one received at grassroots level where golf is seeking to project itself as an inclusive, family sport. There is not a bluechip sponsor anywhere who would invest in that dream if Trump was part of the plan.
If truth be told, the R&A stance was well known off the record but it was good to see chief executive Martin Slumbers make it official.
We await to see if Trump takes legal action over Bedminster. Characteristically, there was a veiled threat in the statement from his team. ‘This is a breach of a binding contract and they had no right to terminate the agreement,’ bleated a spokesman.
Right now, it is safe to assume Trump’s lawyers have more pressing matters than suing the PGA.
Once Trump leaves office, the unspoken worry for golf was always that he would return to his sporting first love and start lobbying for events at his courses. In his own mind, golf was always the place he received shelter from the storm.
That is why this PGA of America statement was so timely. It pointed the way forward. It said to Trump, in no uncertain terms: ‘You’re no longer welcome.’