Given the heated rhetoric of our times, and some of the outlandish stuff that appears on social media by the minute, it almost seems quaint today that Ted Bishop—the former President of the PGA of America—was ousted from his position because of a squabble with Ian Poulter.
Those were some crazy days a decade ago in PGA of America-land, after the United States was slapped back at the Ryder Cup in Scotland, where Phil Mickelson condemned captain Tom Watson in the aftermath and when Bishop was getting heat for having chosen him.
Then came two separate social media posts in reply to Poulter in which he referred to him as a “Lil girl,” igniting a firestorm that the PGA of America a day later cited as “insensitive gender-based comments” in removing him from his position with less than three months to go in a voluntary role with the organization.
Thursday marks 10 years since that occurred in 2014. And Bishop is keenly aware.
“Trust me, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it,” Bishop told Sports Illustrated in a phone interview. “It’s the biggest regret of my life. I felt like we did a lot of good things in those two years and it didn’t end the way I envisioned.
“I’ve said this many times. I make no excuses. It was a bonehead move. It had been a rough few weeks after the Ryder Cup, and I just kind of got sucked into the moment. It was really unfortunate and unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it.”
Bishop, 70, is the director of golf at the Legends Golf Club in Franklin, Ind., the same position he held a decade ago as he had worked his way up through the PGA of America hierarchy after helping found the club where he works. The PGA president job is a voluntary, unpaid position but one that comes with considerable weight as the organization that runs the U.S.-based Ryder Cups, the PGA Championship and other events while also governing more than 28,000 club pros. (Bishop was first a section director, followed by secretary, vice president and president from 1998 through 2014.)
Such were his duties that Bishop was involved just a year prior, in 2013, in a television rights deal for the PGA of America with NBC that would see the network broadcast the Ryder Cup for the ensuing 15 years (through 2030) with a payout of $440 million to the organization over that time.
He also was involved in awarding Bethpage Black (which had hosted the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens) its Ryder Cup, originally scheduled for this year but delayed to 2025 after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 pushed back the event's calendar.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Bishop says. “It was one of the most satisfying things.”
Bishop also felt pride late in 2012 and early in his term when Watson was named the U.S. captain for 2014.
Coming off the heartbreaking U.S. defeat at Medinah—when the Americans blew a 10-6 final-day lead—Bishop sought a new look and change from the way the captain was selected. He reached back some to tab Watson, the eight-time major champion who was the last—and still is—U.S. captain to win in Europe, doing so in 1993.
But the Ryder Cup changed considerably in those 20 years. Watson, who played on four teams (he made five but missed in 1979 due to the birth of a child), went 10–4–1, never playing on a losing team. He was 64 at the time of the matches and the oldest U.S. captain. Watson had not attended a Ryder Cup since he led the team to victory at The Belfry.
The event had taken on a far bigger place in the golf world during Watson’s second captaincy and when things went bad at Gleneagles, it was Mickelson who unloaded in the Sunday night chill as Watson sat a few seats away.
“Nobody here was in (on) any decision,” Mickelson said after the eighth U.S. defeat in the last 10 Ryder Cups while referencing the system Paul Azinger had put in place in a 2008 victory. “Unfortunately, we have strayed from a winning formula in 2008 for the last three Ryder Cups, and we need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best.”
The takedown was shocking, especially in Scotland, where Watson remains a legendary figure, having won four of his five British Opens in the country.
Although Mickelson later apologized and was largely criticized for his comments, many also privately viewed such a public scolding as a necessary step to get the players more involved with a system of picking and grooming captains. That ultimately led to the Ryder Cup Task force and what is still in place today with a committee that includes three players.
Bishop, for his part, recognized this, and was already putting the wheels in motion on the way home from Scotland to make changes.
“A lot of people forget who was not on that team,” Bishop laments of the American squad that lost 16½ to 11½. “Tiger Woods had won five times (in 2013 but was struggling following back surgery). Dustin Johnson was suspended (Johnson officially took a six-month leave of absence that began in early August). Jason Dufner (who was on the 2012) team was hurt and he had won the 2013 PGA. Then everything that happened Sunday night was like throwing fuel on the fire.
“This line was drawn and you had Watson on one side of the line and Mickelson on the other side. Internally, the PGA of America sided more on the Phil side than the Watson side. He was a former champion and was going to be playing in the PGA and the Ryder Cup. And there were some people who turned their back on Watson.
“What was really ironic was the Tuesday before the matches, Pete Bevacqua (then the PGA of America CEO, now the athletic director at Notre Dame), came up and said ‘If we win, why would we not bring Tom back as Ryder Cup captain? We could not have a better Ryder Cup captain.’ You talk about everything flipping. People were critical of Tom and me for making the decision.”
The fallout was worse when reports surfaced in the days following the Ryder Cup that Watson had alienated some of his players and caddies by the way he managed the team. Mickelson, for instance, was benched along with Keegan Bradley—who is the 2025 captain—for the entire Saturday session, despite the duo going 1–1 the day previously and having been 4–1 as teammates at the Ryder Cup.
A few weeks later, Poulter was critical of both Watson and 2008 European Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo in an autobiography that had just been released where he questioned the methods of the captains.
At the time, Bishop was attending a junior function along with Faldo at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia when the verbal sparring began.
Bishop’s ouster cost him a lifetime of perks as he has not attended a Ryder Cup or PGA Championship since the parting. He is planning to go to the PGA’s annual meeting next month for the first time in 10 years because the head professional at his club, Crystal Morse, is being honored.
“The first five years (after being dismissed) were tough,” he says. “I was bitter and did have a bad attitude. Time passes and you get over it.”
One of the things that has helped him, Bishop says, is coaching at a local high school.
Same with some of the support he got from people in and outside of the organization.
Even Mickelson, after the U.S. won the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in the first event staged with the new task force calling the shots, reached out in the aftermath.
“He left a message on my voicemail and he said ‘I wanted to call you and tell you that nobody’s really talking about the formation of the task force and how this went down,’” Bishop says of Mickelson’s call. “‘I want to say thanks for what you did with that task force. We did make some changes and I thought it was important to tell you that,’” I really appreciated that.
“There was just a lot of stuff festering (between Watson and Mickelson). I hate it because I liked them both. In a lot of ways, they are totally different. But in a lot of ways, very much alike.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ten Years After a ‘Bonehead Move,’ Former PGA of America President Ted Bishop Isn't Bitter.
