Flop Shots: Greg Norman & Ted Bishop

The world of golf doesn’t lack for over-sized egos. Whether you are walking down the practice range, through the hallways of any of the administrative bodies or watching the talking heads on any television broadcast egos abound.

It’s one thing to have a bit of an ego when you’re involved in playing the game and playing with the world’s best. I mean who hasn’t told Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson how great they are? Same for Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, these guys are fawned over everywhere you go.

But when you’re removed from playing the game or have a less public role in golf it would seem logical that the narcissistic, self loving would mellow a bit. But then again if someone was the type that embraced his own popularity and had a disproportionate ego maybe there is no letdown in their opinion of their own importance.

Such is the case with two “big names” in golf recently: Greg Norman and Ted Bishop.

Norman, who was recently canned from his lead analyst role at Fox Sports has now taken shots at Fox for letting him go and Bishop, let go for politically incorrect behavior is writing a book on his tenure as PGA of America President.

When you think you’re the center of the universe it’s hard to accept that the entire world doesn’t think the same.

Norman, who kept his mouth shut during Fox’s telecast of the Chambers Bay U.S. Open except for raving about his Aussie favorites contradicts the stories that he was let go for being unprepared and uninterested.

“I thought I was handcuffed, to tell you the truth. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to say, but the final comment they told me [was that] I was too unpredictable. I thought that’s what they want you to do in that role.”

“I was prepared. Somebody told me that the only information I knew was about Australian players. I can rattle down the list with a lot of other US players. I actually went to Chambers Bay with a list of 25 to 27 players that I had done my homework on — their caddies, their coaches. I’d spoken to 14 different coaches,” Norman said.

“You can’t terminate somebody on a performance of one US Open, right? Especially a US Open at Chambers Bay, where there is a lot of production problems and a lot of production issues. It wasn’t what we all wanted it to be.”

Norman’s right in the respect that Fox did have some production issues and growing pains in its initial telecast but that doesn’t explain why such a big personality as himself would remain so quiet in the booth. If anyone could have offered some insight into Dustin Johnson’s choking away a major championship with a three putt it has to be Norman who choked away more majors than anyone in history.

But when you are a former number one golfer, a Hall of Famer and as he likes to call himself “a living brand” it’s hard to accept things when they don’t go your way. Norman will not go away gently.

For that matter neither will Bishop the self proclaimed revolutionary who shook things up at the PGA of America. 

Bishop made news when he named Tom Watson as Ryder Cup Captain and gave him carte blanche to run the team is way. Tom flopped, the team flopped, Phil flopped and therefore Bishop flopped.

His presidency was marked by Bishop taking the PGA to places it hadn’t been before, namely in front of every camera and microphone Bishop could find.

Bishop thought he was bigger than his organization and when he trolled Ian Poulter on Twitter he was met with a quick boot in the ass and shuffled out the door.

The PGA was so upset with Bishop that it essentially wiped his name form their books and banned him from everything to do administratively with the PGA. He would not be recognized as a past president as was tradition.

Now, Bishop and his huge opinion of himself will be telling all in his book “Unfriended The Power Brokers, Political Correctness and Hypocrisy in Golf.”

It’s ironic that Bishop would use that word, unfriended since it’s term used in social media and it was social media that ultimately led to his demise. Sometimes guys just don’t get it.

Bishop gives us a preview in a Golf.com interview. And name drops reason enough to never read his book:

“The day I was being impeached, the first phone call was from Donald Trump. That meant a lot at the time, based on where we’re at today.”

When asked if he had an issue moving on from his dismissal he protested:

“I wouldn’t agree. I think I’ve totally moved on in a lot of ways. This endeavor was a chance for me to complete that task [of moving on]. A lot of this book is some self-validation, to a degree. I’m self-publishing at this time, because timing is important to me. It’s not about money in any way, shape or form, because you don’t know how these things will materialize. I want to share a lot of things with the general reader that they’d find interesting.”

So he’s self publishing, hmm, that tells me no one wanted to publish his book and this fits with his over-sized opinion of himself. Man, that’s a dangerous ego.

Norman and his company has a million irons in the fire and it should be enough to satisfy his ego and his need to be the center of his universe.

Bishop will just have to accept that he had his moment in the sun and it ended in a way he couldn’t choose. But it did end. He needs to accept that.

Maybe when he sells twelve copies of his book he’ll get the message.