Even though the 2016 U.S. Women’s Open now underway in California won’t wrap up until late Sunday, heavy-duty protesters are already looking to the 2017 tourney.
Seems the United States Golf Association, no stranger to hypocrisy, refuses to move next year’s U.S. Women’s Open from the Trump-owned Bedminster club, even though the USGA issued a public statement condemning Trump’s racist views after his “Mexican rapist” rant when he announced his candidacy.
Shades of the Augusta National controversy back in 2003, when the USGA ignored it’s prohibition against holding events at clubs that discriminate on the basis of race or gender by standing solidly behind the Trump-like dinos holding the Master’s Tournament — even though it was clearly in violation of their own by-laws.
Golfers not being a rabble-rouser crowd, the current protest is not taking place with placards in the streets, but behind the scenes. It’s being led by New York University historian Dr. Jeffrey T. Sammons, and other prominent African American golfers. Sammons, who has been trying since 2011 to get the USGA to disassociate with Trump properties, recently resigned his membership on the USGA’s Museum and Library Committee and its African American Golf Archive in protest of the decision to leave the 2017 Women’s Open at Bedminster.
Read more by Martha Burke at HuffingtonPost.com
