The Week That Was, july 5, 2015

     Long, long ago, shortly before my wedding day, my father gave me some advice. “How you make your bed,” he said, “is how you’ll sleep in it.” Thanks to Donald Trump, who now snuggles between the sheets with every influential person, organization, and institution in golf, over the past weeks everyone in our business has experienced needlessly restless nights. Already, Trump is paying a personal price for the venom he has spread. Worse, he’s given golf yet another black eye, just as Sergio Garcia did almost exactly two years ago, when he made a stupid, ugly joke about Tiger Woods and fried chicken. To his credit, Garcia at least had the sense to apologize and get on with his career. Trump, by contrast, equates defiance with strength. He has damaged our business, and all that really matters now is how long his enablers will allow him to continue doing it.

     Just to recap: In his first official address as a presidential candidate, Trump likened the people of Mexico to criminals, drug-dealers, and rapists. Then, to prove that he meant exactly what he said, he doubled down on his comments. From corporate America, the reaction was swift. Just about every business that could comfortably sever its relationship with Trump did so. Univision and NBCUniversal bailed on Trump’s beauty pageants and his reality-television show. Macy’s stopped selling Trump-branded menswear. But the Powers That Be in golf raised no significant objections, as if they’re hoping to let sleeping dogs lie. “I’ve had tremendous support from the golf world, because they all know I’m right,” Trump told GolfWorld. “I’ve been great to golf. I’ve been investing while everybody else was fleeing.”

     Some additional historical perspective: Last year the PGA of America booted its president out of office because he issued a mildly offensive tweet about a professional golfer. It was white-on-white crime, and it was apparently unforgivable. Trump, on the other hand, went on national television, defamed an entire nation, and received what amounts to a free pass from his bed partners.

     To be fair, four of golf’s major institutions -- the PGA of America, the U.S. Golf Association, the PGA Tour, and the LPGA -- issued a joint statement addressing Trump’s inflammatory remarks. “In response to Mr. Trump’s comments about the golf industry ‘knowing he is right’ in regards to his recent statements about Mexican immigrants, we feel compelled to clarify that those remarks do not reflect the views of our organizations,” the anonymous writer said. Translation: We’d prefer to avoid participating in this discussion, but we feel compelled to say something that sounds appropriate. We need to distance ourselves from Trump without going so far away that he’ll notice. This is a glaring example of ineffective leadership. When golf’s most powerful organizations need to discipline a close bedfellow who’s clearly done wrong, they hide under the cover of a press release and do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo and protect their income streams. As they proved when Sergio Garcia blundered, golf’s leaders wish to be behind the social curve and on the wrong side of history. By failing to right Trump’s wrong, they implicitly condone not only his comments but his entire value system. The more I think about what Trump originally said -- “I’ve had tremendous support from the golf world, because they all know I’m right” -- the more it feels like he’s telling it like it is.

     So what’s worse, Trump’s misguided mischaracterizations of Mexicans or the golf industry’s lame response to them? It’s hard for me to decide.

     So far, the business losses that Trump’s golf operation has suffered have been incidental. The city of New York is searching, most likely in vain, for a loophole that might end Trump’s management contract at Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point. The Los Angeles Galaxy, the professional soccer team, has canceled a charity golf tournament that it planned to host at Trump’s golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes. Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican pop singer and occasional actor, has likewise canceled an event, his annual charity tournament at the Trump-branded golf club in Puerto Rico. And NASCAR, which had planned to hold an annual get-together at Trump National Doral, has decided to find another venue.

     On a related and more important note, however, some elected officials and business groups on both coasts are hoping to derail Trump’s presidential ambitions by putting the squeeze on his business partners. “We are here calling for a nationwide boycott of those corporations who choose to invest in an individual who wants to take his racist feelings and translate them into public policy by running for president,” said a Latino elected official in New York City. The Los Angeles Latino Chamber of Commerce, which reportedly represents the interests of more than 200,000 Latino-owned businesses, echoed that sentiment. “As a community of Latinos,” the group said in a press statement, “we must raise our voices by way of our political clout, consumer power, and through our business leadership and make those who would make racially charged remarks against our community and culture aware such talk will not be tolerated.” Reasonable people can most certainly debate the effect of such boycotts. But one thing is for sure: The Trump “brand” has become poison to any industries that aim to do business with the Latino community, golf included.

     Make no mistake, Trump is feeling the heat. “I didn’t know it was going to be this severe,” he admitted to Fox News, a friendly audience. “I am a whipping post.”

     And now, a glimpse inside the bubble in which Trump resides: “I have Mexicans and South Americans working for me all over the country, and believe me, they love me and I love them,” Trump said in an attempt to deflect the blows against his empire. “I think they’re great. I’ve had great support and I haven’t heard one negative thing, and frankly I don’t expect to.”

     If how you make your bed is how you sleep, then the relationship between Trump and golf’s most entrenched institutions is riddled with the complications that inevitably arise when partners vie for money, power, fame, and glory. Over the years, Trump has not only assembled an enviable collection of golf properties, but, just as importantly, he’s done what golf’s elites have asked him to do. As a result, he’s been rewarded with what amounts to a king’s ransom of high-profile, image-enhancing, legacy-creating events, among them the U.S. Women’s Open, the Women’s British Open, the PGA Championship, the Barclays, and the Senior PGA Championship. In the wake of Trump’s discourse on effective immigration policy, some have suggested that these events be relocated to other venues. But as everyone in business knows, it’s hard to undo what’s been done. Promises have been made, and contracts have been signed. If Trump were to lose what he’s already won, his benefactors would have to admit that they made a mistake, and mistakes are never good for business. That being said, the past is prologue. So at this point, one must wonder if Trump’s ultimate dream -- to bring a U.S. Open championship to one of his venues -- can ever be delivered.

     Finally, a question that nobody wants to answer: Is Donald Trump to golf what Donald Sterling was to professional basketball?