FEATURE | GOLF
Ted talks Described as a maverick intent on shaking up golf’s status quo, PGA of America president Ted Bishop is one of the leading voices on all manner of issues facing the golf industry. But with less than a year left on his contract, time is of the essence if one of the sport’s most outspoken figures is to truly leave his mark. By Michael Long
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Jason Dufner holds aloft the Wanamaker Trophy at the end of the 2013 edition of the US PGA Championship, the sport’s richest Major and a key revenue generator for the PGA of America
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f 2013 is anything to go by, 2014 is unlikely to be a quiet year for Ted Bishop. Since becoming president of the PGA of America – the 27,000-member organisation that represents professional golfers in the United States and stages two of golf ’s most prestigious events, the US PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup – in November 2012, the 59-year-old from Indiana has been a busy man. In a little over a year at the helm of what is the largest working sports organisation in the world, Bishop has overseen the appointment of a progressive new chief executive in Pete Bevacqua, successfully lobbied for the instalment of eight-time Major winner Tom Watson as the next US Ryder Cup captain, begun to bridge the historic divide between the PGA of America and the PGA Tour, and publicly challenged the authority of golf ’s rule-makers – the United States Golf Association (USGA) and The R&A – by speaking out against such issues as the ban on anchored putting and the existence of all-male clubs. “The thing about being president of the PGA of America is you’ve only got a two-year window to really make a difference,� he says, referring to the body’s one-term policy. “I don’t want to waste any time.� Under Bishop and Bevacqua, the PGA has become viewed by the rest of ! " organisation, one willing to think outside the box and take a risk or two in order to promote the game. It is a reputation that # ! ` #+ “I’ve never been afraid of tough situations,� he says, speaking in December. “I yearn for that sense of accomplishment.� One way in which Bishop’s PGA has courted attention in recent months is by going public with its idea of staging a future edition of the US PGA Championship, the golf calendar’s fourth Š ) $ ! Bishop himself has mentioned Northern Ireland’s Royal Portrush, which hosted its one and only Open Championship in 1951, as a potential host, “given the powerful effect that Irish golfers have on the professional game today�. But with the tournament scheduled to remain in the US until at least 2019, he is keen to 72 | www.sportspromedia.com
PGA of America president Ted Bishop (right) with the 2014 US Ryder Cup captain, Tom Watson
reiterate that the plan very much remains in the exploratory phase. “I cannot emphasise enough that this is strictly in the conceptual stage,� he stresses. “This is no more than an idea that we are taking a serious look at. We are not in a position where we can even begin to speculate when and if this will actually happen.� Œ $ # off, Bishop believes a US PGA staged outside of America would be in line with the wider globalisation of golf. Expanding beyond the borders of one’s domestic market is, he says, “a widely accepted concept right now�, and he points to the PGA Tour’s Fall Series, the ! ¤ & } % $ as China’s World Golf Championship, and the fact that qualifying rounds for the Open Championship and US Open will be held outside their respective home territories this year as prime examples of the direction in which golf is heading. “If you look at where golf is going to be ten or 15 or 20 years from now, I think the PGA of America would be doing a great disservice to our associations and our members if we didn’t at least explore this option,� he adds. Should the plan to move abroad come to fruition – Bishop suggests an Olympic year, when the schedule will be “somewhat discombobulated�, could “make sense� – there is likely to be no shortage of interest from courses wishing to play host to what is golf ’s
richest Major. State of the art facilities in Asia, especially those in the growing ! ! / established venues in Australia, Europe and the Middle East would surely deem themselves more than suitable candidates. Bishop, though, is keen to point out that any would-be host, wherever it may be, must meet the same key criteria presently required of a domestic host. “First of all,� he says, “the golf course has got to be one that is worthy of hosting a Major championship, and that comes with a couple of different forms. Number one would be the playability and its ability to test the greatest players in the world, the way that a Major championship needs to be. “The other thing that you really get into, that is paramount to being able to host a Major championship, is does the golf course have the acreage and everything that you need from an infrastructure standpoint to be able to really build the physical plan that you’ve got to have the week that you do host this Major championship? “Then I guess thirdly, certainly, is the market and the demographics and the population that will produce sponsorships, will produce ticket sales and all those things.� Œ # ! ! for the PGA. Along with the Ryder Cup, which it co-sanctions along with the PGA European Tour, the US PGA Championship is a primary revenue
generator for the body and thus crucial to its overarching mission of growing golf in its 41 regional sections across America. “We’re the largest working sports organisation in the world today,� Bishop explains, “but the fact of the matter is the PGA of America cannot exist without its Championship events. So the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup are the & $ so to speak. Those are the two things that provide the resources for us to be & & we provide to the largest working sports organisation in the world.� In that vein, Bishop has been buoyed by the continuing commercial success of ˜œ%+ 2 # & _ › NBC Sports Group, the US broadcaster of the Ryder Cup since 1991, signed an extension of unprecedented length to its deal for the exclusive rights to the biennial event. Financial terms have not been released but Bishop describes that agreement, which kicks in in 2015 and also covers the rights to the annual Senior PGA Championship and PGA Professional National Championship across America, as “monumental�. It has, he says, put the PGA “in a very ! & $ # } $ expiration some way off in 2030, and he couldn’t be happier with the partnership. “We’ve been very pleased with the presentation of the product by NBC,� he adds. “I think they understand the Ryder Cup, they understand how to deliver the
product. I think, certainly as a network, they’re innovators; they’re on the cutting edge of technology from a production and delivery standpoint. They have a great talent team that does a fantastic job with the broadcast that they deliver, so there was a tremendous level of comfort that existed there and we were very pleased to have the opportunity to extend into a long-term agreement with them. That certainly made sense for them and made sense for us.� Though Bishop is pleased to report the overall health of the PGA is “good� heading into the second year of his presidency, as a course owner himself – he operates the Legends Golf Club, a 45-hole public complex in Franklin, Indiana – he is all too aware of the challenge that remains to develop the other side of the sport that is rarely seen on television screens. According to him, while American golf at the elite level is prospering, as evidenced by record prize money and the ever increasing value of sponsorships on the PGA Tour, life for the many thousands of PGA professionals who work to teach and grow the recreational game across the country each day remains a struggle. “I think that club professionals that are employed in facilities in this country are still in a tough position,� he says. “We, the United States, have probably lost between two and three million players in the past three years. We’ve seen the number of golfers drop from 27 to 24 or 25 million, depending on what study you’re
looking at. We’re not seeing professionals necessarily prospering in their jobs, in terms of what their compensation levels ' +& $ # 2 decreasing at most facilities, so many of $ $ and struggling with their jobs. It’s kind of a unique set of circumstances where the association in general is doing well, maybe the wellbeing of our overall membership is not as good as we would like it to be. “Our challenge, with those resources that we have available to us at the PGA ! % ! $ $ we can utilise those resources to help train our members, for example, to be better revenue generators at their facilities. What are the things they can do to try to make a difference in their facilities’ bottom line? If they can have a positive impact there, they’re certainly going to enhance their job security and their compensation.� Bishop’s efforts to better the prospects for PGA professionals whilst opening up the game of golf to more amateur players have, however, encountered what he deems avoidable hurdles. Chief among them is the ban on the use of anchored putting strokes, which comes into effect ‚ $  &
The R&A and the USGA last May. Bishop himself staunchly opposed the new legislation before it was eventually passed. Golf, he says, is challenging enough as it is without introducing another potential impediment to the casual player’s enjoyment of the game
Bishop has suggested Northern Ireland’s Royal Portrush Golf Club as a possible venue for a future PGA Championship outside the US
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and, needless to say, he didn’t hold back in making his feelings known at the time. “The reason we took the position we did,� he explains now, “is that as PGA professionals who are charged with trying to make sure people enjoy playing the game – and we’re doing our best to grow the game in this country – we didn’t feel like this was a rules change that needed to be legislated to promote that.� With many months having passed since the decision to outlaw ‘belly putters’ Bishop insists he has grown to accept the rule change, even if his words do carry just a tinge of disdain. “I think what it does do,� he says, “is create a great opportunity for us as PGA professionals who teach people how to play the game to come up with conversion methods or other means of putting, whether it’s use of the long putter or whether it’s a shorter putter with a different putting stroke. “It’s now going to be our obligation $ # ! $ $ way to convert those people into what they’re going to have to do to be able to follow rules and play the game the way the USGA and The R&A have decided it needs to be played beginning of 2016.� Another issue which Bishop’s judgement doesn’t shirk is the evercontentious debate over female participation in golf, with the inclusion of more women in the sport having been high up on the PGA’s agenda. “Women in the United States play an important part in determining where the recreational dollars are going to be spent in every household in America,� he says, “so if we’re going to promote family golf and try to get the parents and the kids involved we’ve got to have buy-in from moms. Certainly, women are a high priority for us.� With that in mind, it is clear to see why Bishop has not always seen eye to eye with golf ’s rule-makers across the Atlantic. Last summer, around the time of July’s Open Championship, he fell out publicly with R&A chief Peter Dawson when the latter refused to pressure the allmale clubs on the British Open rotation into allowing female members. “Those clubs in that rotation that exclude women have put The R&A in a tough position,� he says, before clarifying his stance. 74 | www.sportspromedia.com
“I don’t think it’s The R&A’s responsibility,� he argues, “nor do I think it’s Peter Dawson’s responsibility, to try to change the policies of those individual clubs. I think the onus falls on those clubs and I think that thinking, at least from an American cultural standpoint, is way behind the times. “We are all about inclusion and making sure that everybody has equal opportunity in this country, and I think that is just simply a cultural difference that exists between your part of the world and ours. It’s something that seems to be more palatable over there than what it is here.� Though much has been made of his spat with Dawson, Bishop is philosophical about the whole situation. Given the myriad bodies and voices involved in governing golf worldwide, he views the odd bit of bickering as par for the course. “No matter what people in your part of the world might think about my relationship with Peter Dawson, I’ve always found Peter to be someone that I’ve respected greatly,� he insists. “I’ve enjoyed being around him. I had a delightful dinner with him, sat next to him at the R&A dinner in July at the Open Championship. It was a great opportunity for he and I to converse, to probably get to know each other a little bit better and to understand each other. So I think I can’t say anything negative about The R&A or the USGA, and I won’t. I think that we’ve worked together to greatly enhance golf around the world in both cases and we’ll continue to do that. “You know I’ve used this analogy before over the course of the year: the PGA of America’s relationship with both those entities is kind of like a marriage, and we’ve done a lot of good things together over the years and when you’re married for an extended period of time, some years are going to be better than others. We probably didn’t have our best year in 2013 but I think that’s all behind us and all of us look forward to the future and working together to make golf a better game.� If governing golf is indeed like sustaining a marriage, Bishop is unequivocal when identifying where the power in the relationship really lies. “The people who wear the trousers in the relationship are not the USGA, they’re
not the PGA of America and they’re not The R&A – it’s the PGA Tour,� he says. “The PGA Tour, in my opinion, is probably the most powerful entity in golf worldwide if you look at their impact on the game and certainly where commissioner [Tim] Finchem has put the tour at this point in time.� Though the PGA Tour’s pre-eminence in golf is widely acknowledged, Bishop’s personal admiration for the tour has political undertones. Ever since the PGA Tour, then the Tournament Players Division, split from the PGA in 1968, the two parties have had a fractured relationship but Bishop, recognising the tour’s ability to help raise his own organisation’s stature, has been at pains to rebuild bridges during his presidency. In November, Bishop and Finchem held a press conference to announce a range of shared initiatives aimed at raising # & + # the game. It was a public display of reconciliation spurred in part by their joint opposition to the anchored #$ $ # forward nonetheless. “It was a contentious relationship that our two groups had for many years and to the credit of commissioner Finchem we really have been able to build back that relationship over the past year,� Bishop says. “We’ve done some incredible things together and I think that’s going to continue into the future. “In a year when all of golf ’s leading entities weren’t on the same page and we became fragmented, I do think that you can look at the PGA of America and you can look at the PGA Tour and you can say, ‘OK, that’s an example of what can happen when two groups in golf work together.’� Such a view will surprise those who see Bishop as a divisive character but it is a sign that he is driven to make a difference in the short time he has left in his position. Indeed, with the clock ticking on his tenure as PGA president, Bishop is more motivated than ever to ensure his efforts are not in vain when he steps down at the PGA’s annual meeting in November. “We’ve still got a lot more things that we need to get done in the next 11 months,� he says. “I look forward to that.�