2022 PGA Championship expected to be removed from Trump National Bedminster golf club

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The PGA of America has voted to strip its 2022 Championship from Donald Trump’s Bedminster course in New Jersey after the MAGA siege of the Capitol on Wednesday.

The Trump Organization, which owns or operates 17 golf courses around the world, hit out at the decision, calling it a ‘breach of a binding contract.’ 

The organization added that it was ‘incredibly disappointed’ amd complained it had ‘invested many, many millions of dollars in the 2022 PGA Championship’ and that PGA had ‘no right to terminate the agreement.’

PGA President Jim Richerson explained that the board voted to sever ties with the Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey, after the president was accused of inciting a deadly riot and siege of the Capitol as Congress was certifying the election victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

‘We find ourselves in a political situation not of our making,’ Seth Waugh, the CEO of the PGA of America, said. ‘We’re fiduciaries for our members, for the game, for our mission and for our brand. And how do we best protect that? Our feeling was given the tragic events of Wednesday that we could no longer hold it at Bedminster. The damage could have been irreparable. The only real course of action was to leave.’   

This is the second time in just over five years the PGA of America removed one of its events from a Trump course.  

Eamon Lynch of Golfweek said that the PGA had been debating removing its major tournament from Trump National for two years because ‘any affiliation (with the president) is poisonous.

The move will be a crushing blow to Trump, an avid golfer who has made at least 300 visits to golf clubs during his one term presidency. 

It appears that the 2022 PGA Championship was the only PGA tournament that had been listed on the Trump Organization webiste. The PGA’s vote today appears to end the ties between Trump’s golf courses and professional golf. 

The PGA of America, which has some 29,000 golf professionals who mostly teach the game, signed the deal with Trump National in 2014.

It canceled the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in 2015 at Trump National Los Angeles Golf Club after Trump’s disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants when he announced he was seeking the Republican nomination for president. The event was canceled for good the following spring.

The shocking insurrection Wednesday rattled the country, and in golf circles, attention quickly focused on whether the PGA of America would keep its premier championship — and one of golf’s four major championships — at Trump’s course in 2022.

‘Our decision wasn’t about speed and timing,’ Waugh said. ‘What matters most to our board and leadership is protecting our brand and reputation, and the ability for our members to lead the growth of the game, which they do through so many powerful programs in their communities.’

Trump had delivered a speech to his supporters in which he repeatedly made baseless claims that the election was stolen from him and urged them to ‘fight.’

They stormed the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers were in the process of certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. After forcing their way inside, the violent crowd ransacked the building and sent terrified staff and lawmakers into hiding. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died.

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that 67% of respondents said Trump deserves a ‘good amount’ or a ‘great deal’ of blame for the insurrection.

‘This is not because of any pressures we feel. We’re not being forced into a decision,’ Waugh said. ‘We had to make a business decision. It’s a perpetual institution. My job is to hand it off better than when I found it. One hundred years from now, we still want to be vibrant.’

He chose not to comment when asked if he expected any legal challenge from the Trump Organization.

The PGA of America, which operates separately from the PGA Tour and its week-to-week tournaments, previously held the Senior PGA Championship at Trump’s course outside Washington in 2017. That was the same year the USGA staged the U.S. Women’s Open at Trump National in Bedminster.

Trump also owns Turnberry in Scotland, one of the most picturesque links in the British Open rotation most famous for the ‘Duel in Sun’ between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus in 1977, and most recently Henrik Stenson beating Phil Mickelson in 2016. The R&A, which determines the British Open rotation, has not returned to Turnberry since Trump took over.

He also owns Trump Doral outside Miami, for years a venerable stop on the PGA Tour schedule and most recently a World Golf Championship site. Trump’s presence made it difficult to find a corporate sponsor, and the tournament moved to Mexico in 2017.

Waugh said the PGA of America already had a team in place in New Jersey to start work on selling the events to the public and local sponsorship. Now it’s about finding a place to play the PGA Championship, which dates to 1916, for next year.

The PGA is at Kiawah Island in South Carolina in May.

‘We’ve had a number of places reach out already,’ he said. ‘We think we’ll have a bunch of options.  

The 2022 PGA Championship was set to be the first men’s major to take place at Trump National Golf Club.

The U.S. Women’s Open took place there in 2017, which was won by South Korean Park Sung-hyun.

Golf has always been the favored sport of Trump, or at least the sport he has been most connected with over the years.

The president owns at least 17 golf clubs around the world, including several in Florida.

Trump famously admonished Barack Obama for the amount of time the former president spent golfing, but GNN estimates Trump has golfed at least 308 times during his presidency.

The day after the riots at the Capitol, Trump actually awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three golfers: Annika Sorenstam, Gary Player, and the late Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

The possible removal of one of golf’s biggest tournaments from Trump National is the latest in a line of responses after Trump helped incite the Wednesday riot that is connected to at least five deaths.

Some fans of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York are calling for Trump to be digitally removed from his role in the film.

‘I won’t rest until he is removed from that scene in Home Alone 2,’ wrote Matt Navarra on Twitter.

Foreign leaders, domestic leaders, and diplomats are also condemning the president, who has since been blocked from using most social media sites indefinitely. 

‘Failing to publicly hold the president to account would further damage our democracy and our ability to effectively accomplish our foreign policy goals abroad,’ one cable from diplomats to the State Department read, according to the Associated Press.

Other cancellations related to the riot include Simon & Schuster cancelling Sen. Josh Hawley’s planned book and Apple and Amazon removing right-wing social media app Parler from their platforms.

One of the remaining fallouts that could be in the works is Trump’s removal from office.

It doesn’t seem likely for the 25th Amendment to be invoked, but House Democrats are aiming on an impeachment vote this week. 

Biden’s inauguration is set for January 20.