It seems the U.S. Golf Association and PGA Tour simply can’t help but stir up controversy. First, the PGA Tour tried to pick on disabled golfers, refusing to make even the most reasonable accommodations for players’ disabilities (despite the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act). They fought for their right to discriminate against the handicapped all the way to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court… where the PGA Tour lost resoundingly.
Not content with picking on the disabled, the PGA Tour spent the next few years standing by the Augusta National Golf Club’s brave decision to refuse to allow any women to join the Club (the Georgia golf club had admitted its first black member in 1990 – under duress). Theoretically, women CAN join the Augusta National Gulf Club, and many remain on the waiting list today. Of course, given the Club’s secretive admission process that tends to mysteriously exclude women and minorities, they’ll be waiting a good long time. Of course that doesn’t stop Augusta National from being a marquee event on the Tour, however.
Now, the blue bloods have made yet another bold stand for morality and justice: stripping a poker player/golfer, Dusty Schmidt, of his amateur status for “gambling” $1 million that no one could beat him at 4 rounds of golf and a poker match. Apparently “gambling” (even as a publicity stunt that no one was ever going to accept) is “detrimental to the best interests of the amateur game” and violates the “spirit” of golf. And what does that spirit consist of, exactly? Dusty’s Story in USA Today
