PGA Prez On USGA News: "It’s just not the right way to do things.”
/I linked it yesterday, but bless Ed Sherman for transcribing other key parts of Ted Bishop's interview with Matt Adams for us scribblers who like our quotes in writing.
You can listen to the show here, but note what Bishop said about announcements in the window of big events, strongly denying any relationship between the Golfweek story on Bethpage and the U.S. Amateur, whether there's bad blood between the organizations, and other stuff. Tip of the cap to Adams for strong questions, too.
Adams: “Is there an unspoken rule among golf governing bodies that when they have an event going on that is so important that you kind of leave it alone?”
Bishop: “Well obviously there’s not. (laughs) There’s not at least within the circles of one of golf’s governing bodies. But I don’t think that anybody would have made that announcement during the Masters. I don’t think the USGA would have made that announcement during the Open Championship, and I can unequivocally tell you that the PGA of America would not make any kind of a major announcement that would upstage any one of our major championship partners, nor the PGA TOUR. It’s just not the right way to do things.”
Now, in the defense of some of these groups, golf has very few windows to announce news. Still, as I outlined here thanks to Adam Schupak's reporting, the dates for the bid process were long set to wrap up during PGA week. The USGA long knew it would reach this decision and announce during the PGA Championship. Low, low class stuff.