{"id":453,"date":"2014-11-03T17:09:22","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T17:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.golfballs.com\/?p=453"},"modified":"2024-02-19T15:18:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:18:08","slug":"ted-bishop-dismissed-from-pga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/ted-bishop-dismissed-from-pga\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Bishop Dismissed from PGA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ted<\/a>

Ted Bishop Dismissed as PGA of America President, image: golfdigest.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Apparently Ted Bishop\u2019s departure as the PGA of America president couldn’t wait just one more month.<\/p>\n

Following a dramatic series of events, exchanges and regrets worthy of daytime television, Ted Bishop was officially axed from his position with the PGA of America following a series of social media posts that put the 60-year-old president in the crosshairs of offended fans, players, and PGA board members.<\/p>\n

The ousting of Ted \u2013 an act set in motion by controversial Twitter and Facebook messages dispatched by Bishop himself – occurred less than 24 hours from the regrettable insults that were directed toward professional golfer and formerly Cobra<\/a> and Puma<\/a> sponsored, Ian Poulter. The athlete, who was surprisingly reticent about Bishop\u2019s comments, had criticized Nick Faldo in his recently published autobiography. Faldo, Team Europe\u2019s 2008 Ryder Cup captain, and Bishop happen to be close friends. Once Bishop caught wind of the swings that Poulter had taken toward Faldo, the cyber gloves came off. Bishop took to Twitter and Facebook to post messages calling Poulter a \u201clil girl,\u201d<\/a> a move that he would later come to regret.<\/p>\n

As quickly as this latest act in the world of professional golf has played itself out, many people are left wondering if Bishop\u2019s ousting was really as simple as a matter of a few poorly chosen words that were released into cyberspace before being deleted by Bishop himself about an hour later. Some describe it as simply being \u201cthe last straw,\u201d or even an excuse to mask much more complicated motives.<\/p>\n

Was Ted Bishop\u2019s behavior the final excuse that the PGA of America needed to finally<\/em> put the president\u2019s tenure behind the organization once and for all?<\/p>\n

Walking A Fine Line<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ted Bishop\u2019s stint as the president of the PGA of America can only be described as a rocky one.\u00a0 During his (nearly) two terms as the head of the association, Bishop made his stance clear on several issues \u2013 issues that had a tendency to go against the grain of the professional golfing establishment. Take the anchored putting debate, for example.\u00a0 Bishop\u2019s opinion regarding the acceptability of anchored putters<\/a> in professional golf was well known during a time where the PGA was feeling pressure from across the pond to go along with the new rules barring this particular practice.<\/p>\n

Although the USGA is golf\u2019s governing body here in the U.S., the PGA of America was still expected to express support for the new rule that goes into affect January 1st<\/sup>, 2016.\u00a0 Ted Bishop – while officially acknowledging the PGA’s support – was not happy with the decision to add the putting rule, especially in regards to the way it was applied to amateur golfers:\u00a0 The new rule does not allow for a grace period to ease the new standard into play.<\/p>\n

Things got even worse for Bishop after Team USA\u2019s loss during the 2014 Ryder Cup matches.\u00a0 Tom Watson \u2013 the American team captain that was handpicked by Bishop to take the reigns in Scotland \u2013 caught flack for several of the coaching decisions<\/a> that he had made before the matches were even over, and it wasn’t long before all eyes were on Bishop, too.<\/p>\n

Watson\u2019s captaincy ended up being the kind of embarrassment that the PGA of America didn’t want, and when fingers start getting pointed, they usually end up pointing to the top.<\/p>\n

Then came the final straw for the PGA of America board members.\u00a0 On Thursday, October 23rd<\/sup>, just a mere month away from the end of his two-year term, Ted Bishop was taking jabs via his social media accounts at Ian Poulter. \u00a0By Friday night, Bishop was out of a job.<\/p>\n

If anyone thinks that Bishop\u2019s punishment seems a little harsh on the surface, the ex-president couldn’t agree more.\u00a0 In an interview with the Golf Channel\u2019s \u201cMorning Drive,\u201d Bishop stated that, \u201cI don\u2019t think the punishment fits the crime,\u201d while going on to say that a more appropriate punishment would have been a suspension from social media usage throughout the remainder of his term.<\/p>\n

Apparently a few more weeks of President Ted Bishop was simply too long for the PGA of America board to wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently Ted Bishop\u2019s departure as the PGA of America president couldn’t wait just one more month. Following a dramatic series of events, exchanges and regrets worthy of daytime television, Ted Bishop was officially axed...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,4],"tags":[85,114,113],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-news","tag-ian-poulter","tag-pga-of-america","tag-ted-bishop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}