Trump arrived at Bethpage wearing golf shoes, perhaps expecting that his success in winning golf tournaments might see him asked to suit up.
“Stick to golf” is the default commentary of keyboard commandos who dribble and won’t shut up, invariably reserved for those expressing views counter to their own. But Friday at the Ryder Cup was a day on which one could gladly stick to golf.
For example, one could ask why the organizers of the Ryder Cup, the PGA of America, warmly embraced a man who forces its member professionals to brazenly lie by announcing his victories in club championships — not in senior or super senior flights, but against the best players in the club — even as he nears 80 years of age, and whose need to claim non-existent wins has metastasized all the way to national elections.
We can wonder why an organization dedicated to promoting golf’s values of integrity, honesty and character extends a welcoming hand to someone manifestly destitute of those traits, and all while celebrating — ironically enough — a concession as an act of sportsmanship.
Or why the guardians of a game that prizes respect for one’s opponents smile wanly in the face of one man’s petty, vicious cruelties.
Perhaps we can ponder how a sport that’s founded on calling penalties on oneself and observance of rules indulges an individual congenitally averse to accountability, and whose interest in rules is limited to how they might be weaponized against others.
Or how people who pride themselves on administering a game in which everything is earned and attested to can lay out a welcome mat for someone whose enthusiasm for scraping away lengthy, unconceded putts is exceeded only by the global scale of his corruption.
How about we consider the tolerance shown by a body representing thousands of country club employees toward a guy whose conduct and social media ravings would see him ejected from any facility he didn’t own, assuming he could even be admitted with 34 felony convictions.
Maybe we think awhile on how organizers of a major sporting event can charge fans a king’s ransom for tickets, then sit back while those fans are massively inconvenienced because a would-be king wants to strut among professional golfers, the only (non-Russian speaking) constituency he prostrates himself before.
Or guess at why the PGA of America would place its brand, championships and members in a position to have stout reputations tarnished by associations with a man with no honor worth defending.
The 45th Ryder Cup already promises to be the most charged ever seen, contested before fans known for elevating belligerence to an art form. The matches began in 1927. Almost every U.S. president in the intervening century has been a golfer, but none has ever attended — for good reason. When heads of state show up at sports events, paying customers suffer. When Donald Trump attended the U.S. Open men’s tennis final earlier this month, the security precautions left hundreds of ticket holders stranded outside long after the match had begun. The U.S. Tennis Association hadn’t invited the president, Rolex did, proving how the most telling aspect of Trump’s tariff campaign is what corporations will offer him for exemptions.
Knowing all that, why did the PGA of America choose to invite the most polarizing golfer in the country to the Ryder Cup? The answer is: it didn’t really.
According to one source familiar with how circumstances unfolded, the PGA of America learned Trump had decided for himself that he was going to Bethpage Black. That forced organizers to either play along and pretend an invitation was always in the works, or to tell him he wasn’t welcome. In the latter scenario, the member voicemails left for CEO Derek Sprague would have rivaled any obscenities directed at competitors by the Bethpage gallery.
U.S. captain Keegan Bradley expressed his gratitude for the presidential appearance: “When you're representing your country at a place like Bethpage Black in New York, having the president there to support you is something that is just absolutely incredible. I'm really grateful to him for doing that for us,” he said.
"I hope he will inspire us to victory,” added Bryson DeChambeau. “I think he'll be a great force for us to get a lot of people on our side.”
Trump arrived at Bethpage on Marine One wearing golf shoes, perhaps expecting that his continuing success in winning golf tournaments might see him asked to suit up by Captain Bradley. There were plenty of folks delighted to see him, including a few PGA of America officers eager to get selfies for Facebook. Others simply had to grin and bear it. After all, theirs is an organization with non-profit status granted by the IRS, and which previously angered Trump by stripping him of the major championship he’s long coveted, moving the 2022 PGA Championship from his New Jersey course after the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Trump came to the Ryder Cup because he believes golf is a safe space, and none of the sport’s leaders give him pause for thought because they fear his volatility and vengefulness. Tomorrow, they’ll go back to slapping themselves on the back about the game’s noble values. But by sticking to golf today, we see the hypocrisy exposed. Perhaps the people fond of telling others to stay in their lane might have urged the president to keep politics away from Bethpage. But those normally loud voices seem to be mute. You know, as in dumb.
(Eamon Lynch is a golf columnist for Golfweek, part of the USA Today Network.)
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lynch: Ryder Cup stuck with one thing it didn’t need — Donald Trump
Category: General Sports
