By Joel Beall
The PGA of America will no longer be holding the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. The association announced its decision to move the championship on Sunday night.

“The PGA of America Board of Directors voted tonight to exercise the right to terminate the agreement to play the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster,” said Jim Richerson, president of the PGA of America. “It has become clear that conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminister would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand and would put at risk the PGA’s ability to deliver on many programs and sustain the longevity of our mission.”

The decision comes after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 during a joint session of Congress to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. The assault left five people dead, including Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick. The event has led to growing calls for the PGA of America to distance itself from Trump, who owns the New Jersey course among a portfolio of golf properties.

In an interview with the Associated Press, PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh said his organization found itself “in a political situation not of our making.”

“We’re fiduciaries for our members, for the game, for our mission and for our brand. And how do we best protect that?” Waugh told the AP. “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.”

The PGA of America awarded its flagship event to Trump Bedminster in May 2014, prior to Trump announcing his bid for the United States presidency. Three years later the course hosted the USGA’s U.S. Women’s Open in 2017, which Trump watched on-site. In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization said the group was “extremely disappointed” with the PGA of America’s decision and that the PGA of America is in “breach of a binding contract and they have no right to terminate the agreement.”

“As an organization we have invested many, many millions of dollars in the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster,” said a spokesperson for the Trump Organization. “We will continue to promote the game of golf on every level and remain focused on operating the finest golf courses anywhere in the world.”

This is not the first time the PGA of America has moved a scheduled event at a Trump venue. The PGA of America and Trump mutually decided that the 2015 Grand Slam of Golf should not be held at Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles following Trump’s comments on Mexican immigrants at a presidental rally. The event was eventually cancelled after being unable to find a host.

The PGA of America did not announce a new site for the 2022 PGA Championship, but sources tell Golf Digest that Southern Hills is one of the leading candidates. The Tulsa course, recently restored by Gil Hanse, has hosted four PGA Championships, and is scheduled to serve as the venue for the 2030 PGA Championship as well as the 2021 Senior PGA Championship.

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Editor’s Note: President Donald Trump is immersed in another controversy regarding Civil War history, on Thursday lamenting on Twitter the removal of Confederate statues in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va. In May Trump caused a stir with comments about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War. As noted in this story from 2015, Trump had earlier instances of historical revisionism regarding the Great Rebellion.

By Sam Weinman
We all play golf courses that feature various memorials to people and events: benches, flagpoles, that sort of thing. At my home club, for instance, there’s a stone marker honouring the memory of a longtime starter at the club from decades earlier.

Call me naive, but I’ve always operated under the assumption that this was at one point an actual person.

It’s worth reconsidering only because of a New York Times report from November 2015 that says Donald Trump’s Northern Virginia Trump National Golf Club features a plaque between the 14th and 15th holes honouring a Civil War battle at that precise spot. The inscription, signed by Trump, reads:

“Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot. The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.’ It is my great honour to have preserved this important section of the Potomac River!”

Nice sentiment, small problem: there apparently was no such battle.

The Times checked with various historians in the area who had trouble tying the site of Trump’s course to any such event.

“No. Uh-uh. No way. Nothing like that ever happened there,” Richard Gillespie, the executive director of the Mosby Heritage Area Association, told the Times.

Gillespie went on to say the closest thing to what Trump was describing was a battle 11 miles up the river in 1861. “The River of Blood?” he said. “Nope, not there.”

During his campaign, Trump questioned how historians could dispute the battle. “How would they know,” he told the Times. “Were they there?”

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The USGA and LPGA players are hoping to depoliticise this week’s U.S. Women’s Open at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. That ambition is off to a rough start thanks to a USA Today report that says Donald Trump threatened the USGA with legal action if the governing body moved this week’s championship from his New Jersey venue.

Christine Brennan writes that the USGA’s Mike Davis informed members of the executive committee of the lawsuit during Trump’s presidential run. A person with direct knowledge of the event said Davis told the group, “We can’t get out of this. He’s going to sue us,” after meeting personally with Trump.

That Trump would threaten to sue is not surprising; no name is as synonymous with litigious proceedings. Over the past three decades, Trump has been a plaintiff or defendant in more than 4,000 lawsuits.

Trump’s relationship with the USGA — along with the PGA Tour and PGA of America — came under fire at the beginning of his campaign in 2015, as some of his comments regarding women and minorities seemed counter to golf’s ethos of creating an accommodating and welcoming environment for all. Following the release of Trump’s controversial “Access Hollywood” video, the USGA was specifically targeted by a handful of senators petitioning to move this week’s Women’s Open from Trump’s Bedminster property.

Image/Chris Keane
USGA boss Mike Davis

Publicly, the USGA has remained committed to the event, trying to shift the spotlight towards the action inside the ropes.

“Let me make it very clear that we came here, this was all about coming to a great golf course to play the greatest championship in women’s golf,” Davis said during the U.S. Women’s Open media day. “You know, the USGA since its founding in 1894 has never been involved with politics. Our focus is solely on the game of golf, and we appreciate that there’s some out there that want to make this a political event, but we’re not.”

When reached by Golf Digest, the USGA issued the following statement: “As a matter of policy, the terms of our contracts with championship host sites are confidential and accordingly the USGA will not comment. We are excited that our U.S. Women’s Open Championship week has begun and are focused on providing the ultimate test of golf for the best female players in the world.”

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It was a showdown worthy of two men who already have spots in the World Golf Hall of Fame. For much of Sunday afternoon, Bernhard Langer and Vijay Singh matched each other shot for shot at Trump National Golf Club, Washington, D.C., separating themselves from the rest of field at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. Over the final few overcast holes, there was just one question to answer: Who had enough left to win?

As has usually been the case since joining the PGA Tour Champions in 2007, the 59-year-old Langer proved too tough to take down. A 15-foot birdie on the par-4 16th hole gave him a one-stroke advantage after Langer and Singh had equaled each other’s scores on the previous nine holes. Then on the par-3 17th, Singh made a three-putt bogey from 35 feet (missing the par putt from six feet) that made his birdie on the 18th hole academic.

Related: Gary Player insists that they’ve got the career senior major count all wrong

With a par-par finish, Langer closed out a four-under 68 to win by one stroke with his 18-under 270 total.

In the end, Langer didn’t just beat Singh on Sunday. He also beat Jack Nicklaus, as Langer claimed his ninth career senior major, surpassing the record of eight titles Nicklaus held alone until seven days ago, when Langer won the Regions Tradition title.

“We play to win tournaments, especially majors,” Langer said. “And now have surpassed Jack Nicklaus in majors on this tour is pretty unique. To win back-to-back majors is really hard to do. I was really tired. I was aching. … I’m blessed.”

ICYMI: (and we hope you didn't) Here's the Championship-clinching moment for Bernhard Langer #SrPGA pic.twitter.com/inwRitu77T

— KitchenAid Senior PGA Champ (@seniorpgachamp) May 29, 2017

The victory was Langer’s 32nd on the senior circuit but his first at the oldest major in senior golf. In turn, the German became the first golfer to win all five tournaments designated as majors on the PGA Tour Champions.

“He played awesome,” Langer said of his opponent. “I played pretty much as good as I can. If he made a few putts he would have had me. … He has some weapons I don’t have.”

Indeed, playing in just his 15th PGA Tour Champions start, Singh, 54, resembled the golfer who had won a record 22 PGA Tour titles in his 40s. Singh’s distance off the tee allowed him to attack Trump National’s par 5s, where he’d made birdies 12 out of 16 times.

But Singh’s power game was offset by a balky putter as he would miss makeable eagle and birdie attempts on several holes Sunday, including the five-footer for par on the 17th.

Conversely, Langer’s putting game shined as he made crucial birdie putts on the ninth, 13th and 16th holes to keep the pressure on Singh in their mano-a-mano duel. By week’s end, Langer led the field in driving accuracy (51 of 56, 91.6 percent) and greens in regulation (61 of 72, 84.72 percent). In the final round, Langer hit 17 of 18 greens.

“If I would have putted nicely, this thing probably would have been over a long time ago,” Singh said. “But Bernhard played really solid, he never missed a shot, and he was always on the green and he putted nicely as well, so he deserved to win. The way I played, he should win.”

Like Langer, Singh had much to play for on Sunday. Since winning the 2008 Deutsche Bank Championship on the PGA Tour, it had been nearly eight years and 215 events from his last individual victory (he shared the crown with Carlos Franco at last month’s Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf event). He’ll be back at it next week, playing in the Memorial Tournament.

Meanwhile, it’s hard to speculate just how many majors Langer can win before he’s done on the PGA Tour Champions. With back-to-back majors now under his belt (the second time he’s done that in his career) and this the fourth time he’s won more than one major in a calendar year (joining 2010, 2014 and 2016), it would appear he’s not likely to slow down in the near future. His next shot comes at the end of June when the U.S. Senior Open is held at Salem (Mass.) Country Club.

There’s at least one player who thinks Langer isn’t close to being done.

Congratulations Bern! What a great win! I have always said that records are made to be broken, and congratulations… https://t.co/Rszfx2AIMy

— Jack Nicklaus (@jacknicklaus) May 28, 2017

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