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The PGA of America, which hosts the PGA Championship – one of four prestigious major men’s world golf championships – announced Sunday night that it will no longer be presenting its event at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. was scheduled for May 2022..
“It became clear that conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand, and jeopardize the PGA’s ability to deliver our many programs and maintain the longevity of our mission,” Jim Richerson, the President of the PGA of America, said in a video statement.
Sunday’s decision by the PGA of America came days after a crowd of Trump supporters, incited by President Trump, converged on Capitol Hill, swept law enforcement and rampaged through the halls of Congress . The insurgency killed five people, including that of a Capitol policeman.
For years, Trump had pressured each of golf’s major governing bodies to host one of the biggest golf events at one of his golf courses. In 2014, long before announcing his candidacy for president, the PGA of America selected Trump National for its 2022 championship.
In the statement, Richerson said the organization’s board of directors voted “to exercise the right to terminate the agreement” to bring the tournament into Trump property. A new site for the event, first contested in 1916, will be chosen at a later date. The Bedminster club hosted the 2017 US Women’s Open, and the President’s Club in Virginia hosted the 2017 PGA Senior Championship. The PGA of America, founded 105 years ago, represents more than 25,000 professionals from teaching clubs.
Since entering the White House, Trump has been associated with golf like no president before him, even by the standards of an office frequently occupied by a golfer. While he was booed by fans at a World Series game and sparked protests from athletes in basketball and football, among other sports, Trump tried to maintain his long-standing ties with the professional golfers and some of the most decorated players in the history of the game.
He awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to four golfers: Tiger Woods, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Gary Player and Annika Sorenstam. The latter three, Didrikson Zaharias, posthumously, received the honor at the White House Thursday, the day after the Capitol attack by the pro-Trump mob.
Since his election, Trump has played golf with Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ernie Els, Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, among many other golf pros past and present. World No.4 ranked golfer McIlroy then declined another invitation to play with Trump and criticized his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in May. “The fact that he’s trying to politicize it and make it a campaign rally and say that we run the most tests in the world like it’s a competition, there are things that are just terrible, ”McIlroy said. “This is not the way a leader should act.”
He has visited his golf clubs over 300 times since taking office and inspired a bestselling book on How Golf is the Best Way to Understand It.
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