Rea was once a minor league umpire in Triple A baseball.
Don Rea Jr., a PGA Master Professional, was elected president of the PGA of America at the association’s annual meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Rea is a member of the Southwest PGA Section and the owner of Augusta Ranch Golf Club in Mesa, Arizona.
He’s the 44th president of the PGA and will serve a two-year term. He succeeds John Lindert, the director of golf at the Country Club of Lansing in Michigan. As president, he will represent more than 31,000 PGA of America Golf Professionals.
Rea has been a member of the PGA of America since 2002. He also serves on the Arizona Lodging & Tourism Association Board of Directors, which aims to promote the golf and hospitality industry as well as inform Arizona legislators on water usage in the golf industry.
Rea has connections to professional baseball as well, as he was a minor league umpire at the Triple A level. He also umped games during spring training in Arizona.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to serve, alongside our Officers and Board of Directors, the more than 31,000 PGA of America Golf Professionals of our Association,” said Rea in a news release. “Our members and associates are serving millions of golfers through this amazing game every day. I’m incredibly proud of the lives we impact collectively along the way, shoulder to shoulder with our 41 PGA of America Sections. It is our top priority to serve our PGA of America Golf Professionals and provide resources to allow them to thrive and continue to lead as experts of the game.”
“There is not a single day that goes by that I don’t think about that and I don’t regret it.”
Ted Bishop has booked his trip for the PGA of America’s upcoming annual meeting, his first time back in a decade. The 38th president of the association of more than 30,000 golf club professionals is attending for one primary reason – to see Crystal Morse, the head professional at The Legends Golf Club, the course he operates in Franklin, Indiana, receive the PGA’s Player Development Award.
There’s a bit of delicious irony that just weeks removed from the 10-year anniversary of Bishop’s impeachment as president of the PGA for making sexist comments on social media that his female protege, who also doubles as Bishop’s co-head coach of the Franklin Community boys and girls golf teams, is being honored with a national award on Nov. 5 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. If that isn’t rich enough for you, Bishop, 70, is scheduled to receive the Sam Snead Award from the Metropolitan Section of the PGA on Nov. 14, recognizing his “exceptional contributions to the Met section and the broader golf community.”
“I was humbled beyond words when the Met PGA informed me of this great honor,” Bishop said in a release announcing the award. Speaking to Golfweek, he added, “This is one of the greatest honors ever bestowed upon me.”
Ten years ago, Bishop was humbled in a very different way, ousted from his volunteer job less than a month before his term was to end.
“It seems like it was 100 years,” Bishop said. “But there is not a single day that goes by that I don’t think about that and I don’t regret it. The biggest regret of my life is the way it all ended.”
On Oct. 23, 2014, Bishop said he felt compelled to defend the record of Hall of Famers Nick Faldo and Tom Watson, who had been disparaged in Ian Poulter’s recently-released autobiography. On Twitter, he wrote, “Faldo’s record stands by itself. Six majors and all-time RC points. Yours vs His? Lil Girl.”
If Bishop’s message was unclear due to the 140-character limit of Twitter, he elaborated on Facebook.
“Used to be athletes who had lesser records or accomplishments in a sport never criticized the icons. Tom Watson (8 majors and a 10-4-1 Ryder Cup record) and Nick Faldo (6 majors and all-time Ryder Cup points leader) get bashed by Ian James Poulter. Really? Sounds like a little school girl squealing during recess. C’MON MAN!”
PGA President Ted Bishop addresses attendees of the 96th PGA Annual Meeting.
It’s hard to fathom that Twitter (now X) has been around for a decade but Bishop’s politically incorrect tweet offended a wide swath of the game he purported to represent. Despite deleting the posts in short order, he was subsequently canceled before that term became in vogue.
Bishop apologized for abusing his position of power but the PGA’s board shifted into damage control mode and when Bishop refused to step down, it voted to impeach him. As a result, he wouldn’t be classified as an A-5 member, the designation of a past PGA president. He’s the only past PGA president required to pay dues and still earn his recertification. Nor has he been invited to PGA Championships and Ryder Cups, or bestowed any other courtesies extended to past presidents, including serving the customary role as honorary president as well as captain of the U.S. side at a PGA Cup and for a Junior Ryder Cup team.
The punishment never seemed to fit the crime for an individual who at closer glance had championed the women’s game, hosting every significant statewide women’s golf championship in Indiana at his facility since it opened in 1992. He helped create the Indiana Women’s Open and hosted the first 10 years of its existence. Both of his daughters – Ashely, who works at the Legends GC along with her husband, and Ambry, the women’s head golf coach at St. John’s University for the past two decades and an assistant pro at the Saint Andrews Golf Club in New York, had followed in his footsteps.
One of Bishop’s supporters told him that the PGA gave him the death penalty for shoplifting. Ken Willis of the Daytona Beach News-Journal wrote: “There’s reaction, there’s overreaction, and there’s the utter carpet-bombing exhibited by executives of the PGA of America, whose blitzkrieg actually took down just one man.”
What may have bruised Bishop most was that then-PGA CEO Pete Bevacqua stood by as the board cut him loose. (Only LPGA great and CBS Sports golf commentator Dottie Pepper, who was an independent director on the PGA board, abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote.)
“A guy I hired, promoted and formed a tremendously productive working relationship with,” is how Bishop described Bevacqua in a photo caption in his book “Unfriended,” of the two of them in happier times. “I can’t help but feel betrayed and unfriended by Pete more than anyone else.”
From left: PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua, Donald Trump and former PGA of America President Ted Bishop at a news conference in 2014.
Bishop was elected to PGA membership in September 1985 and had served in a leadership capacity at either the section or national levels since 1989. He began his two-year term in office in 2013 and almost immediately, he became embroiled in the anchoring debate, thrust into the spotlight as the voice of the PGA’s controversial stance opposite the USGA and its proposed Rule 14-1b. He had been portrayed mostly as a hard-nosed, no-nonsense maverick who delighted in going against the grain – for example, when he unexpectedly chose Tom Watson as the next Ryder Cup captain.
Bishop did a lot of good in his role as PGA president – though some might argue he found hearing his own voice too intoxicating – and then one day it was all over due to a foolish few words he typed on social media. Bishop struggled with the adjustment.
“I mean, I was bitter. I just had a bad attitude. I was kind of getting focused on maybe some of the wrong things,” he said.
“I felt many emotions after my impeachment,” he wrote in his autobiography “Unfriended.” “Embarrassment, despair, rejection, betrayal, anger and depression would best describe my mental state in the weeks that followed my unceremonious fall from grace in golf. It was an extremely tough time for my family and me.”
Time has healed some of the wounds. Tom Watson, who Bishop championed as U.S. Ryder Cup in 2014, former PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, and Donald Trump, before he shifted into politics, were among his friends who lent their support. A few weeks after Bishop was removed from his post, past USGA president Glen Nager, who departed a similar volunteer job on not-the-best-of-terms, reached out to Bishop and offered what proved to be some wise words of wisdom.
“He told me something at the time that I didn’t really realize how true it was, but he couldn’t have been any more accurate. And he said, ‘You know the difference between you and me? You basically spent your entire life serving the PGA of America.’ And he said, ‘I served USGA, but in a much shorter capacity.’ And he said it took him about a year to get over everything that kind of happened at the end of his term with the USGA. And he said, ‘It will take you probably five years to get over this.’ You know what? He was right, almost to the day.”
But that changed in the fall of 2019 when Bishop made a trip to the PGA’s then-headquarters in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, at the encouragement of Tony Pancake, the director of golf at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana, and the 2024 PGA Club Professional of the Year, and Mike David, the executive director of the Indiana PGA Section. The two longtime Bishop supporters orchestrated behind the scenes for Bishop to be given an opportunity to address the board and say his peace. David and Pancake accompanied Bishop on the trip but weren’t permitted to sit in on the meeting. It was the first time Bishop had stood in front of the board since he’d been impeached and he asked for forgiveness and for his rights as a PGA president to be reinstated.
“I remember walking out of there, and I told Tony and Mike, “You know what? I don’t know what’s going to happen from here, but I’ll tell you this, I feel like I’ve had the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders, and I feel like this finally brings closure to this situation.”
In 2017 or 2018 – he couldn’t be sure – Bishop already had made amends with Bevacqua. (Multiple calls and texts requesting an interview with Bevacqua weren’t answered before this story was published.)
“We reconciled everything, and I feel like we’re good friends today,” Bishop said.
In fact, Bevacqua sent an email on Bishop’s behalf asking for his PGA rights to be reinstated, but that request and Bishop’s efforts at the board meeting fell on deaf ears. That decision reeks of hypocrisy given how the PGA’s leadership handled a more recent situation. In 2018, Paul Levy was in the middle of his presidency with the PGA when he was arrested and charged with suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. Despite the fact that Levy could have injured or killed innocent motorists while behind the wheel in his condition, the PGA stood by him and Levy served out the rest of his term and retained all the privileges of a past president when his term in office concluded.
David, for one, continues to campaign to the national officers on Bishop’s behalf, and mused that his unceremonious exit as PGA president still bothers him more than he will admit.
“I’m dumbfounded that we have not reinstated him,” David said. “A 10-year sentence is long enough. From the standpoint of the Indiana PGA, we feel he deserves better than this. He has served his time and the continued ban at this point is ridiculous.”
Rory McIlroy catches the lid of the Wanamaker trophy as PGA of America president Ted Bishop passes it to him after McIlroy won the 2014 PGA Championship.
Bishop could’ve crawled into a hole and disassociated himself from the PGA but instead he dove into his work as general manager and director of golf at The Legends Golf Club in Franklin, Indiana, a daily-fee facility where he oversaw the construction and development of what originally was a 45-hole complex. He’s assumed the role of full-time superintendent, too, and often can be found behind the front desk or answering the phone. He also poured his energy into his local section and became involved in several committees for the Indiana PGA section, and in the last five years he’s found his greatest fulfillment in coaching and mentoring high school teams.
Bishop bursts with pride when he talks about the Franklin Grizzly Cubs women’s team, which has won the mid-state championship six straight years and just won the first sectional since 2005, the first regional since 1999 and finished fifth in the state.
“I’ve gotten as much pleasure coaching the girls as I have the boys,” Bishop said.
He’s simply trying to keep up with wife Cindy, who coached the school to several titles when daughters Ashely and Ambry starred for the team.
“It’s like my career almost has come a complete 360,” Bishop said.
And while the PGA’s board has yet to see the light, it couldn’t ignore the success that Morse, Bishop’s co-coach, has made on the development side of the game at his facility; moreover, the Met PGA honor proves that many PGA professionals are willing to forgive one mistake and look at Bishop’s full body of work.
He was hard at work with his son-in-law in the back kitchen at his club while Asheley was prepping for a catering job when the Met PGA phoned him with the news of the Sam Snead Award. Bishop didn’t need to be given an award to know he’s been making a difference both near and far, but it did feel like validation.
“He broke down and was so emotional when he hung up the phone,” Ashely recalled.
Ten years later, Bishop’s career deserves to be remembered for more than two words. He’s demonstrated in his second act that golf is better with him in it.
The announcement is consistent for what the PGA of America has done the past two years,
The PGA of America announced Thursday that its board has determined LIV Golf players will be eligible for both future PGA Championships and the Ryder Cup.
LIV players will be offered A-3 membership into the PGA of America, the same granted to PGA Tour players, those on the DP World Tour and nine other circuits around the world.
The announcement is consistent with what the PGA of America has done the past two years, including in 2023 when LIV Golf’s Brooks Koepka won the PGA Championship for the third time and then participated on the United States Ryder Cup team in Rome.
“To ensure the PGA Championship will continue to deliver the strongest field in golf and that the U.S. Ryder Cup team will continue to have access to the best American players, the PGA of America board has determined that LIV Golf players will be eligible for both,” the statement read.
“Going forward, all LIV Golf players are eligible for the PGA Championship and any American player who qualifies for the Ryder Cup on points or is added to the U.S. team as a captain’s pick is eligible to compete.”
Without LIV events receiving world ranking points, it will be hard for most of those players to compete in the PGA Championship or make the U.S. Ryder Cup team, outside of a select few.
The process will remain the same as it has forever: if you can qualify, you can play.
“Every day I wake up, I get to do something I love.”
Ken Morton Sr. has been recognized more than Mother Teresa. He’s got more hardware than a Home Depot.
Already a PGA of America Hall of Fame member, the Sacramento native received the PGA of America Master Professional Lifetime Achievement Award on July 28 at the headquarters of the PGA of America in Frisco, Texas.
Morton, the 83-year-old longtime head professional at Haggin Oaks Golf Complex and CEO of Morton Golf Management, a golf course management company that oversees all management aspects of four Sacramento municipal golf facilities, was recognized for his award-winning career and extensive contributions to the Association.
“Every day I wake up, I get to do something I love,” Morton told NCGA Golf magazine in 2021.
Morton became just the fifth recipient of the award, which honors PGA Master Professionals who exemplify the elevated standards of the highest education designation within the Association.
A PGA of America Member since 1964, Morton got involved in the development and implementation of Association Education in 1978, initially serving as a faculty presenter. He was instrumental in the evolution and development of the Apprentice, Member, Certification and Master Professional programs.
“I can wholeheartedly state that without PGA Education, my business career would not be what it has become today,” Morton said. “Becoming a PGA Master Professional really did have a dramatic impact on my career. It’s an honor to be recognized, although I have found that the journey to earn the reward is more meaningful than the award itself. The years of being on PGA faculty and getting involved in these programs gave me the opportunity to work with some of the most talented golf professionals in the country, which was reflected in what I did when I went to work each day.”
To distill Morton’s career into awards and honors is to miss the point of his life in the sport. Growing up in Sacramento, the son of a blind father, he took a job at age 11 caddying at Del Paso Country Club. There he met head pro Frank Minch, Sr. One day, Minch asked Morton if he’d like to get better at golf. Morton said yes. Minch told him to show up every Saturday at 7:30 a.m. for lessons. Morton appreciated it but said he couldn’t afford lessons. Minch repeated his instructions.
“He changed my life,” Morton said.
Morton morphed into a golf lifer, a Northern California high school and community college golf champion who also learned how to repair, refinish and re-shaft golf clubs. Then came part two of Morton’s back story: Haggin Oaks pro Tom LoPresti told Minch he needed a club-repair guy.
Ken Morton was 18 years old in 1958 when he accepted that job from LoPresti. What followed over the next six decades has been difference-making idea after difference-making idea. Morton left his mark on player development, marketing, merchandising, junior golf, minority golf initiatives, charity, super stores, 24-hour driving ranges, civic contributions, community and family.
“He’s the Willy Wonka of golf,” said Frank LaRosa, a Sacramento radio and TV golf host.
In 1983, the Sacramento area schools made budget-fueled moves to eliminate high school golf. Morton’s response? He raised money for SAY (Sacramento Area Youth) Golf to get prep kids playing again, and form its junior partner, Little Linkers, including its core principles of honesty, integrity, discipline and respect. Recognize that concept? That’s because the First Tee, a national junior golf development program launched in 1997, consulted with Morton on how to structure its program. Morton may be proudest of the Morton Golf Foundation’s work with Black and Latino junior golfers, veterans and its college scholarship program.
“The game is so great for quality of life,” Morton said.
In 1995, Morton had a circus tent up for their annual April golf expo, but a torrential rainstorm blew through overnight and wrecked the whole thing. “My entire life’s earnings were in that tent,” Morton once said. “Gone overnight.” But he’d studied business practices in annual seminars as a faculty member of the PGA of America’s head pro program. Insurance allowed him to build the 15,000-square-foot Haggin Oaks super store.
“It’s like a Disneyland of golf,” LaRosa said.
Morton officially retired in April 2021, but he still stays involved by hosting customer-service training at Haggin Oaks. His sons, Ken Jr., and Tom, are part of the management team that run the place. Continuity is a thing. LoPresti was at Haggin Oaks 62 years. Morton bettered him by one. The next generation is in place.
“It’s a testament to my Dad’s infectiousness and passion,” Ken Jr. said. “It’s hard not to catch it.”
Morton reflected on his journey, and come to some conclusions.
“It was this thing Mr. Minch did for me that really said to me: ‘Ken, life is pretty good for you. Now you need to do for others what he did for you,’” Morton said. “That’s been my lifetime goal.”
During his tenure, the PGA relocated its headquarters from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida to a fancy, new campus in Frisco, Texas.
Seth Waugh is stepping down from the PGA of America after electing not to renew his contract, which expires on June 30.
A national search for a new CEO, which will include internal and external candidates, is underway. During the transition, Chief Championships Officer Kerry Haigh will serve as interim CEO. Haigh will not be part of the candidate pool for the new CEO position.
“The goal from the start was to leave the room better than we found it and I believe that together we have done just that,” Waugh said. “Golf has never been younger or a better reflection of the greater population. It’s never been more forward leaning, more popular or considered cooler than it is today. I have often said that golf is one of the great engines of good on earth. I am perhaps the biggest all-time beneficiary of that good.”
Waugh, 66, joined the PGA as CEO in September 2018. He was on the verge of completing a three-year term as an independent director on the PGA’s board when his predecessor Pete Bevacqua left to become NBC Sports Group President – he’s currently serving as athletic director at Notre Dame – and Waugh was hired to take over.
“I may have gotten the job because of what I’ve done, my business stuff, but I took the job so that I could make a difference,” Waugh said shortly after starting as the head of an association that exceeded 30,000 club professionals for the first time during his tenure. “The opportunity to do that is what is fulfilling to me. That will be my legacy, not whether we win a Ryder Cup or have the biggest TV deal ever. It will be whether the members are better off.”
During his tenure, the PGA relocated its headquarters from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, to a fancy, new campus complete with championship golf courses in Frisco, Texas, and committed to bringing 26 future PGA America championships – the PGA Professional Championship in April being the first of them – to the two courses built in its backyard. In his role, he also signed a lucrative 11-year TV deal with CBS and ESPN beginning in 2020.
“On behalf of the more than 30,000 PGA of America golf professionals, we are grateful for Seth’s leadership and for all that he accomplished for our members, our game, the business and our people,” said PGA of America President John Lindert in a statement. “He skillfully led us through incredibly challenging times and was always a great partner. We are fortunate to be able to call on him going forward for his always helpful advice and counsel.”
As former CEO of Deutsche Bank Americas, Waugh worked during his time there with the PGA Tour to create the former Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston, where he hired now-PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan to be the first tournament director and served as an early mentor.
Ahead of the 106th playing of this year’s PGA Championship, the PGA of America’s flagship event, Waugh addressed the “messy” state of pro golf as the PGA Tour and LIV continue to battle for eyeballs and interest.
Kerry Haigh, Chief Championships Officer of the PGA of America, John Lindert, PGA of America President and Seth Waugh, Chief Executive Officer of the PGA of America, speak to the media during a news conference ahead of the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club. (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)
Waugh said he was “absolutely” worried about the game at the professional level, noting how “it seems to get messier every week.”
“I think the best thing for the game is a deal. And we’ve been very consistent on that front,” said Waugh. “What has been an unsustainable business model has put pressure on other places like the (PGA Tour) that creates some financial dynamics as well as other dynamics that are very hard, and quite frankly it puts some financial pressure on us, as well.”
When a reporter suggested avoiding the sport, Bernhard Langer responded, “Good move.”
Bernhard Langer, known for his commitment to fitness, tore his left Achilles tendon while playing pickleball back in February in an incident that surprised the all-time leading winner in PGA Tour Champions history.
In fact, Langer said he assumed the game was a safe alternative to other sports, and even though he defied the odds by returning to action just three months later at the Insperity Invitational, he’s still advising others to tread lightly when it comes to playing the popular game.
“It shocked me because I thought pickleball was not a dangerous sport,” Langher said this week in advance of the KitchenAide Senior PGA. “I go snow skiing and do a lot of other things that seem a lot more dangerous than pickleball.
“When you talk to orthopedic surgeons they will prove me or anybody wrong. Fifty percent of their clientele is pickleball players, believe it or not. Has nothing to do with fitness. Nothing whatsoever.”
When a reporter suggested avoiding the sport, Langer responded, “Good move.”
Bernhard Langer lines up his putt on the second green during the first round of the Masters. (Photo: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Network)
The two-time Masters champ will be among the field of 156 golfers at Harbor Shores Resort, Benton Harbor, Michigan, which is hosting for the sixth time since 2012.
As for his injury, Langer said he heard anecdotally that many friends needed nearly a year to recover, but he was thrilled to pop back up quickly with the help of a physical therapist.
In terms of how the injury occurs, it’s more about the motion than it is the fitness of the athlete.
“Yeah, whether you’re fit or not you can tear your Achilles any time. Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles, and baseball and football players and bobsledders, anybody, and they’re very, very fit, believe me,” he said. “The bobsled on ice when they push the bobsled, two men, four men, and then they jump in and they’re as fit as any athlete in the world, and they tear the Achilles more than anyone in the world. It’s that motion, just putting that pressure on it.”
During his recovery, Langer shared a nervous moment when his therapist instructed him to get directly up from a seated position.
“I was scared. You know, I was non-weight bearing for a while, and then my PT, one day we were doing the hour session and sits me in the chair and says, get up. What am I holding on to? No, get up. I said, not sure I can do that,” Langer recounted. “And it’s not me. I’m not a fearful person. I just knew how weak my leg was and didn’t think I could do it. He said, okay, here is a pole. Hold on to the pole, now get up. That was no problem. I did that three or four times and less and less pressure on the pole and more and more on my legs.
“I was like, I can do that. Take the pole. I got up and it was up here. But yeah, it’s fascinating what’s going on in our bodies.”
Langer tees it up alongside Retief Goosen and Y.E. Yang on Thursday at 7:59 a.m. ET in the first round.
A reminder, this is the only major that allows the devices.
The PGA of America announced back in 2021 that it would allow the use of distance-measuring devices in its three professional major championships – PGA Championship, KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship – starting that year.
The devices made their first appearance at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Ocean Course in South Carolina.
“We’re always interested in methods that may help improve the flow of play during our Championships,” said Jim Richerson, then the president of the PGA of America. “The use of distance-measuring devices is already common within the game and is now a part of the Rules of Golf. Players and caddies have long used them during practice rounds to gather relevant yardages.”
The PGA of America became the first major body to allow the devices in all its premier professional events. There had been speculation for years that such devices might help speed play, as players and caddies don’t have to walk off yardages to sprinkler heads and other fixed positions.
The United States Golf Association’s Rules of Golf have allowed the use of laser rangefinders and GPS devices in casual play and tournaments since 2006, but a local rule allowed a tournament committee to ban such devices. At elite professional levels of play, the devices still have not been embraced for competition rounds, though they have been allowed in the U.S. Amateur since 2014. They are still not allowed during competition rounds at PGA Tour events or at the U.S. Open and British Opens.
In keeping with Rule 4.3a (1), the devices allowed can report only on distance and direction. Devices that calculate elevation changes or wind speeds, or that suggest a club for a player as well as other data, will not be allowed.
Wyndham Clark checks the distance to the 11th hole during the second round of the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club. (Photo: Clare Grant/Louisville Courier Journal)
The devices aren’t new for the pros, many of whom already use laser rangefinders and GPS in practice rounds.
Many laser rangefinders provide information on elevation changes and “plays-like” distances. Most of those devices come with a switch to turn off such information, but many elite players opt for devices that do not provide elevation and other data as a precaution against forgetting to turn off those functions.
Nantz will be inducted into the PGA of America’s Hall of Fame during the 107th PGA Annual Meeting in Frisco, Texas.
I still remember the first time I called Jim Nantz for an interview.
It was 2009, and Fred Couples, Nantz’s former college roommate and teammate at the University of Houston, was prepping for Augusta National a week ahead of the Masters by making a run in their old stomping grounds at the Shell Houston Open. Who better to get a quote from than Nantz, I figured.
Only one problem: I called him while he was broadcasting the Final Four. Oops! Anyone else would’ve hit delete on my voice mail and I might have been lucky to get a call back at the earliest on Tuesday after March Madness had concluded. But not Nantz. I was calling about one of his dearest friends and so he dialed me back in between games and, pressed for time, reeled off three or four snappy quotes, a telling nugget and an anecdote that made my column for that week’s print issue. Thus was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
On Wednesday, Nantz, who has been with CBS since 1985 and joined the network’s golf coverage in 1986, was to be inducted into the PGA of America’s Hall of Fame in the ambassador category during the 107th PGA Annual Meeting in Frisco, Texas. The honor is especially meaningful to Nantz, whose love for golf blossomed during summers spent working at Battleground Country Club in Manalapan Township, N.J., for head professional Tony Bruno.
“The greatest lesson in my life that I didn’t get from my parents was watching a PGA professional at work,” Nantz once told me.
I’ve learned a lot from Nantz over the years from our many encounters and conversations over the phone, email and text, including in August in Minnesota at a golf course being built by one of his college teammates. Here are four lessons on life I’ve learned from Nantz and one classic story he recounted from his illustrious career calling some of the great moments in men’s professional golf.
“We are enthusiastic supporters of the U.S. Solheim Cup Team and are promoting the Solheim Cup in a number of ways.”
Stacy Lewis didn’t hold back on Wednesday when asked if she thought more could’ve been done to promote the first back-to-back Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup in Europe.
“I think it was a missed opportunity for the sport of golf,” said Lewis, who said she worked hard trying to get some synergy between the organizations.
The first Solheim Cup ever contested on Spanish soil gets underway Friday at Finca Cortesin, where Team Europe looks to win three in a row. Next week, the Ryder Cup will be held in Rome for the first time.
The PGA of America gave Golfweek the following statement in response to Lewis’ comments:
“We are enthusiastic supporters of the U.S. Solheim Cup Team and are promoting the Solheim Cup in a number of ways. For starters, we are creating digital assets and collaborating with our friends at the LPGA on our social media channels. For the first time, we produced a U.S. Ryder Cup Team video in which the players and our Captain expressed their support for the Solheim Cup Team.
“We are also supporting the Solheim Cup with editorial content on PGA.com and by engaging with Solheim Cup content across PGA of America channels. Finally, our CEO Seth Waugh will be onsite in Spain to cheer on the U.S. Solheim Cup Team for all of us. While scheduling and logistics challenges precluded some other joint activations, the PGA of America will help to raise awareness in a meaningful way through our digital and social media efforts.”
The U.S. Ryder Cup Twitter account released a good luck video on Thursday at 10 a.m. with the likes of Wyndham Clark wishing luck to fellow 2023 U.S. Open winner Allisen Corpuz, and Brian Harman giving a shoutout to fellow British Open winner Lilia Vu.
The Solheim Cup has been contested in odd years since 2003. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing Ryder Cup officials to cancel in 2020, the biennial men’s event opted to stay with odd years after the 2021 contest at Whistling Straits.
The Solheim Cup moves back to even years next year at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia.
The 2023 Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be in November at the PGA’s new home in Frisco, Texas.
The PGA of America’s 2023 Hall of Fame class will feature three PGA professionals, an LPGA legend, a past PGA president and a famous broadcaster.
The PGA announced its next Hall inductee list Monday, with the official ceremony set for Nov. 8, at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort in Texas.
PGA Members Robert Dolan (Middle Atlantic PGA Section), Don Wegrzyn (Illinois PGA Section) and Herb Wimberly (Sun Country PGA Section) will be inducted alongside past president Suzy Whaley, LPGA legend Kathy Whitworth and CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz at the 107th PGA Annual Meeting. The PGA’s Hall started in 1940.
“It is an incredible honor for the PGA of America to recognize and celebrate our six inductees who have made a real impact on the game of golf and the countless individuals they’ve inspired along the way,” said PGA of America President John Lindert.
Whitworth, who died on Christmas Eve in 2022, collected 88 victories during her 23-year career, the most tournament victories by a professional golfer. She was the LPGA’s leading money winner eight times, Player of the Year seven times and won the Vare Trophy (lowest scoring average) seven times.
Suzy Whaley is a Master Professional who became the first woman elected to serve as PGA President in 2018. She played on the LPGA in 1990 and 1993 and qualified for the 2003 Greater Hartford Open (now known as the Travelers Championship), becoming the first woman since Babe Zaharias in 1945 to play in a PGA Tour event.
Nantz is a member of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. He’s also in the Pro Football and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fames. A three-time Emmy Award winner and five-time National Sportscaster of the Year, he’s been with CBS since 1985 and joined the network’s golf coverage in 1986.
