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Ted Bishop…Another Twitter Casualty

You can’t make this stuff up.

A few months ago PGA President Ted Bishop was riding high. Bishop had been lauded as a “maverick” during his time as president. He had become one of the most visible PGA Presidents in their history.

He stood up to the USGA and the R&A during the anchored putter debate. He and CEO Pete Bevacqua had brought the PGA of America into the spotlight with new partnerships with the PGA Tour and a newly crowned major for the LPGA Tour.

Under his reign the PGA stole a few treasures from those blue jackets at the USGA with the PGA and Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black and a PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster just down the street from their headquarters in New Jersey.

And that was Bishop at Augusta National beaming with all the head honchos while kids set the golf world spinning in the Drive, Chip & Putt competition.  bishop gc

We listened to him talk of growing the game and he spent plenty of time with the boys at The Golf Channel.

But his crowning moment was to be when his “out of the box” pick, Captain Tom Watson would lead his Ryder cup Team out of the dark of defeat and into the spotlight of victory. We all know how that went.

So now this mover and shaker, this guy who likes to mix things up, who was the loosest of loose cannons is out on his ear, all because he decided to defend Nick Faldo.

That was his first mistake. There is no defense for Faldo.

His second mistake was the method by which he chose to do it: Twitter.

Good old Ted tries to take down Ian Poulter on Twitter. Really? That’s like the Kardashian Clan saying they don’t want more publicity: never going to happen.

Twitter is a dangerous thing and Bishop was over his head from the start. He calls Poulter a “little girl” and it was all over.

No deleting of the Tweet, no apology, no statement was going to get him off the hook.

Ted doesn’t get it and here is the proof. When he was asked to resign by his fellow officers he refused. And then he was immediately removed by the Board of Directors. It was time to go out with what little dignity he had left but he couldn’t do it.

For a man that spent the past two years telling anyone and everyone “we need to grow the game” he comes off looking exactly like the biggest problem in the game: that golf is a game for rich, old white guys.

He blew it, plain and simple. He should have known better than to mess with that young man’s game: Twitter.

 

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