PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Okay, I like golf more than professional football.  That’s one reason why I write about golf on this day, the day of the Super Bowl. 

I may watch part of the game, but won’t be glued to the TV.

So on with golf.

The headline in this blog first appeared in a story in the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago, so I cannot take credit for it.

But, I do agree with it.

Trump and golf shouldn’t mix.  At least not officially.

For one reason, when he has played the game, he does not abide by any rules.  No surprise there because rules don’t matter to him in any context, including politics.

Here’s the way the Wall Street Journal wrote about the subject:

“On the day after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a reckless mob of President Trumpsupporters — a throng spurred on by the president himself — it might make sense that Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player could have woken up, checked out the headlines, and said to themselves, ‘You know, I ought to decline that Presidential Medal of Freedom after all.’  Accepting an honor fromthis president at this time isn’t showing respect to the office.  It’s willingly associating with a delusional leader who has done his best to dismantle our democracy.

“But the problem doesn’t lie just with Sorenstam and Player, two of golf’s all-time greats, who followed through with long-held plans to receive their honors from Trump in a private ceremon.  The problem is with golf as a whole, because the sport has entangled itself with this embattled presidentand apparently doesn’t see a way to make a clean break.”

The PGA of America may have started an official break-up when it decided not to hold its signature PGA Championship at Trump’s facility in Bedminster, New Jersey, in 2022.  Trump blanched at the move, but it was about time it occurred and it is likely that other Trump venues will be excluded from playing rotations.

The Journal continued:

“In choosing to go to the White House, Player and Sorenstam — natives of South Africa and Sweden, respectively — missed their chance to say, ‘Enough is enough.’

“Of all the traits golf purports to teach, honor is foremost among them.  Golfers honor the rules, whether anyone is watching them or not.  They honor their competitors by honestly recording their scores.  In a casual amateur match, there is no referee.  There is only trust that two players are reporting what happened truthfully.”

Trump has torched those traits from the highest position in the nation, not just as a weekend hacker.  This is worth noting because his tentacles are deep in the sport and it’s past time to declaw those tentacles.

Let him play his own game.  Just don’t endorse his overt and abhorrent conduct by contributing to his bottom line.