Can check: Ripe Pursuit lemon radler (Athletic Brewing Co.)
In-brain soundtrack: “Guess Things Happen That Way” (Johnny Cash)
Golf hole living rent-free in my head: No. 18 at Brora GC
. . .
In an age of hypocrisy, there’s no such thing as a surprise. Tuesday’s announcement that the PGA Tour will return in 2026 to Trump Doral certainly was not one; the plan has been one of pro golf’s worst-kept secrets all summer. And by now, the PGA Tour has been party to enough hypocrisies in the past decade to make even this one unremarkable.
The point here is not that the Tour is hypocritical. The point is to note exactly whose tombstone this one goes on.
For once, outgoing Tour commissioner Jay Monahan — the most feckless major sports executive in my lifetime — has less bullshit under his fingernails than some. When former commissioner Tim Finchem broke off the Tour’s decades-long relationship with Donald Trump’s South Florida golf resort in 2016 (following Trump’s descriptions of immigrants as “rapists,” among other things), it was Monahan who inherited the brave new world that 2017 heralded: one in which the spurned tournament host was suddenly president.
Rarely accused of being principled, Monahan could have done the easy thing and returned the event to Doral quickly. Trump’s desire for the Tour to return has been common knowledge. So if Monahan’s candidacy for the Sycophant Hall of Fame doesn’t win on the first ballot, then not returning the Tour to Doral on his watch might be to blame.
But there’s a new lickspittle in town, and that’s Tour CEO Brian Rolapp. Rolapp’s first day as head honcho won’t come until after Monahan quits the building at the end of 2026. That means Rolapp is in the enviable position of wielding real power without the vulnerability that comes with stepping on your own private parts twice per week.
If Rolapp hadn’t wanted to return to Doral, then the Tour wouldn’t be returning to Doral. End of discussion. Yet here we are.
What has changed since 2016, then? Well, only that Trump has since been elected president twice. “Elections have consequences,” as Alan Shipnuck noted. Quite right. When Finchem parted ways with Trump in 2016, undoubtedly he guessed (as most did) that the Trump carnival would self-immolate long before November with the candidate left a cultural (and commercial) pariah. Finchem only got the first part of that right.
So what if Trump trades back slaps with Nazis or further widens the gulf between the country’s haves and have-nots? Plenty of those have-nots voted for him. If winning just one election has consequences, then winning two must entitle the victor (and his suck-ups) a little absolution, right?
Sure, ask Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton about that.
Brian Rolapp has cast his die. He’s betting that the PGA Tour can enjoy hypocrisy’s short-term upside while avoiding history’s long-term condemnation. Maybe he’s right. Or maybe he just doesn’t give a shit. That’s the most important part of hypocrisy.