USGA On Trump: "We're Evaluating"
I'm just getting around to today's Trump reading and all signs point to the golf v. Donald matter not really subsiding. 
Randall Mell on the USGA Thursday press conference at Lancaster CC during the U.S. Women's Open where Executive Director Mike Davis was asked about the controversial host of the 2017 U.S. Women's Open.
“I can’t speak for the other golf organizations, but I can for the USGA say that we have not wanted to get involved in politics, presidential politics, but at the same time we are about diversity, about inclusion, about growing the game,” USGA executive director Mike Davis said Thursday at the U.S. Women’s Open. “We are evaluating things, and at this point that’s all we can say.”
With Trump Bedminster just down the street from Golf House, there's no telling how much needs to be sorted out here. Oh, the joys of neighborship!
Bradley Klein considers the Trump golf brand and how the unraveling of golf v. Trump impacts the cache built up of late.
That brand is now two-fold: in the form of marketing and of a recognizable aesthetic. By putting his name on each of his 17 properties, he has unavoidably, and in fact quite systematically, created a unique mode of consumer identification with his product. No one else has done that in golf course development. Not in such personal terms.
And James Corrigan of The Telegraph warns that golf might want to be careful in cutting ties to Trump and opening up other worm cans.
But what should the R&A do about keeping Trump Turnberry on the Open roster?
My advice would be nothing. After all, Royal Troon may be having a review into their membership policy but next year’s Open venue still does not allow women to be members. Neither does Muirfield.
Meanwhile, many of the sponsors which keep the sport awash in greenbacks could hardly be said to be squeaky clean. Golf should stay away from the high ground for a while yet. Otherwise that tremendously infectious disease called hypocrisy could pour across its borders.
Friday, July 10, 2015 at 03:18 AM
Reader Comments (56)
The consultants must be making a bundle.
I liked the old Blue Monster, for instance. Have no interest in the Trump version. But then I haven't played it so maybe I'm missing the experience of a lifetime. The Ferry Point course is showy but I'd say it was at least intriguing. I'd go back. Or at least I used to think I'd go back. The idea of putting one dime in Trump's pocket now strikes me as abhorrent. Such are the travails of a Brand.
"David Fey is loser!"
"I;ll sue those morons!"
"This is the finest course in New Jersey! The second finest is my course in Colts Neck!"
"I won't let losers and morons run golf"
"I AM GOLF"
First, I'll say right up front that I'm a screaming liberal and I think Trump is a horrible human being. But, I'm going to put that aside and focus on his clubs/courses.
I've played 6 of his courses at 5 clubs: Bedminister (both courses), Colts Neck, LA, Charlotte, DC. Generally speaking, the courses are well maintained, fun to play and have certain signature touches that are generally nice. There's always a giant flag to aim at on one of the holes, there's always water on 18, the club house is white, etc. The clubhouses are usually nice, if a tad garish because of his ostentatious design aesthetic. This isn't universally true, though. Charlotte was designed as part of a psuedo Cape cod village, so it has slightly different design issues. All the courses (save Charlotte), are walk able and there are caddies. Sometimes the caddies are mandatory. Having played DC before and after he bought it, I thought his changes, such as bringing the river into view, were good, although the horrible water feature he added on 18 is an affront to the course.
Now, I looked at joining the one in DC. Two courses. Caddies mandatory at ALL TIMES on the better course. So, if you want to slip out for a quick couple holes one evening after work, you and everyone else is playing the other course. He is unabashedly elitist about that. He doesn't want the less financially well off members to play the better course. It fits with his worldview that golf is for the rich and the elite. I'm plenty well off and could join his club, but frankly, I don't need a snooty club. I just want a group of like minded single digit players to play with.
And that, ultimately, is how I view Trump: as someone who has a nice product to sell (the golf courses), but he wraps it up with a big bow of elitism that doesn't appeal to me, and frankly makes the game look like the province of rich, white jerks with dated ideas, essentially turning U.S. golf back 50+ years. There's a place for elite clubs. There's a place for public golf. But, it would be far better for the game if the loudest spokesperson for the sport weren't so completely in the first camp.
Recent comments (botched in regards to the interpretation) have very little to do with actions to pare back dealings with Trump.
Once Presidential run is over - whenever that is - business for him will come back... #simple.
Note: I also don't expect to ever play Augusta, therefore the 48 :-)
Good heavens. As much of a dick that I think Putin is, if he built a course and it got good reviews, I would probably check it out.
Even a course designed by that soulless narcissist Tiger Woods, I would check it out as well if the reviews were decent.
"Hey, that guy has a different opinion than some other people, kick him out of the game! Diversity!"
The majority of Americans know we have a problem and want something done.
-
And lest you all think Trump's presidential run will be short-lived: he's now leading in the polls. LOL.
@GW: what country did Dylan Roof illegally sneak in from? What about James Holmes? Tim McVeigh?
Now that's an experienced CEO.
Cheapened the discourse? Made the national conversation dirtier? It's already cheap and dirty. He's giving it the appropriate respect it deserves.
@GW I'd respond but delivering the verbal shiv would likely get me banned from this site.
I feel the same way about you O.. now go and burn a book or ban a flag..
Love how you were able to sneak in another dig at TW in a Trump thread; I am reminded of the X-wing pilot in Star Wars: you really do "stay on target." :)
And including Ann Coulter's commentary is fair game, in that regard. I've always liked Ann; a Michigan Law School grad, a federal judicial clerk and the product of a terrific team of staffers in Senator Spencer Abraham's office. And one of the sharpest commentators in America today.
I gotta say further; I agree with Geoff Shackelford on about 99% of his golf-related views. And I am just guessing that we wouldn't agree on a whole lot in politics. But it matters not to me; I'm here for the golf, and I adore Geoff's "golf."
I particularly like Geoff's apparently light hand in moderating these Trump threads. I think the whole Trump/immigrant thing is a politically-charged witchhunt coming from the Left. And yet Trump is legit golfing news, and Geoff is dutifully reporting it. It is bound to get messy in an internet forum, and there's nothing anybody can do about that.
(I don't much subscribe to Donald Trump's politics, and the funny thing to me is that his comments about Mexican immigrants weren't his most outlandish ones. Nobody seems to think much about his proposal for a 35% tariff on all autos assembled in Mexico. Or how as President, Trump could personally will such a tariff into being.)
Trump was doing just fine before he had a TV show
I'm enjoying his brand and businesses suffer. I've known he was a total a-hole since the 1980's.
Just read Chuck's comments on Ann Coulter. Wow! You write, "I've always like Ann..one of the sharpest commentators in America today" You're definitely who Trump is pandering to--the lunatic fringe!
... keeping with the golfing theme - there's a lot less space in the lunatic fringe
than what occupies the green lunatics.
I, for one, am glad for anything that knocks this guy on his ass and gets him off of my television, so I hope the USGA balks at any further relationship with him, and if it takes this controversy -- stoked by the media or not -- to do it, then I say, good job, liberal media.