And then there’s the PGA.
As responsible companies and entities push back on the state of Georgia’s new voting laws — seen by many critics and Democrats as a way to suppress the Black and brown vote — the Professional Golfers’ Association plays on.
No group has been more tone deaf and against change in professional sports in this country.
Hence, the Masters will go on, starting tomorrow in Augusta, as if nothing is wrong.
That event, those people, mostly think they are still in the 50s, watching Leave It To Beaver on TV. Sadly, that’s still the world they live in.
It’s the sport that loved the sick and twisted imagery — all the golfers were white and all the caddies had to be Black.
Masters, indeed.
What a moment this could have been. The PGA could have truly come out of the stone ages had it stood up to Georgia governor Brian Kemp.
Not playing the Masters, a crown jewel in sports, would have sent shockwaves to those pushing this unjust agenda against the masses that don’t look like them.
Instead, the PGA, as usual, swung and missed. Refused to act. Enter the backbone of forced change: the sponsors.
This event could have easily been stopped by the deep-pocket sponsors of the event. At some point, they have to simply stop supporting a sport that is buried in the past, most of which is shameful and wrong.
Cyndi Lauper’s 80s song “Money Changes Everything” couldn’t be more spot on.
That’s the only way you get people’s attention, you can force change and get people to do what’s right.
We saw it in the NFL. Washington owner Daniel Snyder said he wouldn’t change the racist name of his football team. In fact, he said it would only happen over his dead body.
A number of major sponsors said in a letter last July that they would pull millions of dollars from the team if there wasn’t a name change and it virtually happened overnight.
All of the protests from native Americans and columns written by many sportswriters did nothing. The loss of revenue did the trick quick fast.
The same could happen at the Masters as well.
And shame on the golfers, too. They should push back on their sport that refuses to recognize that there are bigger fish to fry in the world, that missing an event on principle is a good thing. Often for change, there’s a sacrifice.
And the notion that the PGA shouldn’t be concerned, because it doesn’t directly affect it’s white fan base, is total nonsense. It’s not about Black and white. It’s about right and wrong.
NASCAR showed the way last year during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. For sure, its base might be whiter than the PGA’s. But it didn’t stop them from doing simply what’s right, stopping fans from bringing the Confederate flag to its events.
The hell with tradition, especially if it’s rooted on the wrong side of history.
Last week, MLB made many proud and pulled the All-Star Game out of Atlanta in light of Georgia’s actions. The league of Jackie Robinson couldn’t turn away, ignore it. Delta and Coca-Cola also publicly criticized the state for their new voting laws.
“It’s reassuring to see that for-profit operations and businesses are speaking up about how these new Jim Crow laws are just antithetical to who we are,” President Biden said to the media. Tiger Woods, who is recovering from his car crash and not playing this year, could have had a huge impact years ago but decided to look away and not take a stand. And if the biggest golfer, who happens to be Black whether he wants to admit it or not, doesn’t care and isn’t willing to demand change, the old guard isn’t. Back in the 60s, Charlie Sifford, a Black golfer, won two recognized PGA events. Had he been white, he would have been invited to take part in the Masters. He was denied. He was told he “didn’t meet the qualifications.”
“To my mind, the Masters was the worst redneck tournament in the country, run by people who openly discriminated against Blacks,” Sifford wrote in his book, Just Let ME Play. “But somehow (the club) got away with it.”
And it still gets away with it because corporate sponsors haven’t pulled their money away. That’s all it would take. It’s truly black and white.
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