Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Outrage vs. pragmatism: Trump and the U.S. Women's Open | Marcus Hayes

The U.S. Women's Open will be played July 13-16.

BEDMINSTER, N.J. – Outrage is easy. Often, it is warranted.

Pragmatism is more complicated.

It's easy to manufacture outrage that the USGA is holding the U.S. Women's Open at Trump National Bedminster, which hosted a preview day Wednesday in advance the competition July 13-16.

Preview days are usually a seminar in architecture and agronomy. The hot debate concerns course redesign, the length of the rough and the speed of the greens. Nobody talked about greenside collection areas Wednesday. As with anything associated with President Donald Trump, the atmosphere was charged with controversy.

Sorry. At this point, the outrage just seems contrived.

Granted, anything even tangentially associated with Donald Trump warrants a degree of outrage. He is a parody of the robber-baron archetype, a regular embarrassment as the sitting President of the United States and, relevant to this situation, a caught-on-tape misogynist.

But to ask the USGA to move the championship, or to ask the golfers to decry the host, is both unrealistic and a little bit unfair. After all, everybody knew what Trump was long before he ran for president.

Any venue change is unrealistic because Mike Davis, executive director of the USGA, is a member at Trump National and a good friend of The Donald. You think he's going to Do the Right Thing? Please. Even if the event was moved last year, when the depths of Trump's vileness became apparent, it would have cost millions of dollars to change the venue.

There doesn't seem to be much corporate outrage, either. According to a USGA spokesman, no sponsors have wavered in their support of the tournament.

Nor have any players. Cristie Kerr decreed Wednesday that none would.

Who would lead the revolt?

Not Lexi Thompson and Kerr, the top-ranked U.S. women in the world, who trumpeted their admiration for Trump. Not Lydia Ko, the top-ranked woman in the world, who is from New Zealand and has no interest in championing women's issues in this arena.

Think about it: This arena is golf. It is, perhaps, the last refuge for the upper crust of the #MAGA crowd. You'd have as good a chance asking the USPA to disavow Trump. (USPA is polo's governing body.)

Ko and Kerr attended the preview day Wednesday. Kerr and Davis kept insisting that the event should not be tied to politics.

That, of course, was ridiculous. Golf is business and business is politics. Furthermore, in a democracy, the people are the politics, so everything is politics. Self-governance is the burden of freedom. It doesn't suspend itself for four days in July.

You might argue that if Trump's degradation of women had come to light outside of a political race then the tournament might have been moved. However, that ignores the reality that the comments came to light only because Trump was embroiled in a political race.

Another reality is the event makes millions of dollars for the USGA. You expect them to throw away cash … over the comments of one of their biggest advocates?

As for the players, the $5 million purse is the largest in women's golf history. To suggest that any golfer should forfeit a chance at her biggest payday is patently unfair, especially since professional athletes – even golfers – have such small windows in which to maximize their earnings.

Ironically, whatever his motives might have been, Donald the Grabber has long been a benefactor to the LPGA. He offered record purses and consistent support in the mid-2000s – as it turns out, the same time frame in which he issued his most vile utterances.

As for the presentation Wednesday, unsurprisingly, the Trump Organization and the USGA remained ham-handed as ever.

They invited two dozen girl junior golfers to attend the press conference, at which the president's unsavory history of degrading women was raised. Donald Trump Jr. sat in a chair next to their group.

Later, at clinic for the girls, Kerr was typically charmless and clumsy. At one point, she said, "I don't know a human on earth … that hasn't said something they regret."

Given the depth and frequency of Trump's depravity, Kerr must know some awful humans.

Then again, she knows Eric and D.J, the well-gelled scions. Eric sat at the head table and spoke for the Trump Organization; he was, as ever, transparently pompous.

What did you expect?

The USGA is a white-bread, back-slapping, good-old-boy business. The Trumps are rich, sheltered elitists. LPGA players are independent contractors trying to make as much money as quickly as they can. Their own interests are tantamount. Any effort to change that seems hollow.

You'd stand a better chance threading a bilious billionaire through the eye of a needle.