Golf no longer pandering to an unhinged blowhard
THE R& A stood shoulder to shoulder with the PGA of America yesterday. A few hours after the l atter 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 i s certainly an i mportant 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 l egal 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.’