Driving a Lemon

I am posting my column from this week on this blog because I think it bears some repeating. You can find it on thegolfnewsnet.com, as well as the wonderful affiliates that run my column each week - including sportsday's family of sites, Sports Fan Magazine, the Sports Critics, Head2Head Sports, and others who pick up the RSS feeds. I thank you for your support!

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February 9, 2008. That’s when the term of Walter Driver as President of the USGA ends. Driver’s wife, Betty, has said she cannot wait for it to end. Betty and I share a common thread because I am counting the days to the end of his term with more vigilance than I am the last hours of President George W. Bush.

Driver’s two year term at the helm of the rulemaking body of North American golf has been tumultuous to say the least. At Golf House, the President has made sweeping personnel changes. In essence, Driver has forced out any high-ranking USGA official with whom he does not agree or against he simply has a grudge. Marty Parkes – former senior director of communications – was given the ax because he granted an inside look at the dysfunction at the USGA to GolfWorld’s Chris Millard. Tom Meeks was given the boot as a scapegoat for lousy Open setups in the past several years that have gone past the point of standard USGA punishment. Agronomist Tim Moraghan’s position was eliminated for a very odd set of reasons.

For the faithful USGA servants that remain, their chief has created working conditions that simply are not in the spirit of the organization. Driver has cut benefits for employees, which serve as one of the primary reasons that many people can even stay employed in the nonprofit community. Morale in New Jersey is low and reports indicate that some within the organization question its direction.

Outside of the organization, Driver has been operating in a completely misguided fashion.
Driver has tried to make the USGA operate as though it were a business, instead of a nonprofit guardian of the game of golf. He has engaged in corporate sponsorships with Lexus and American Express in an effort to sellout the USGA and create more “revenue streams” for the organization. These come on the heels of two massive operating losses over $6 million in recent years – one under his watch. Interestingly enough, the USGA refused to dip into its estimated $300 million in investments to cover the operating losses. Driver recently pushed to have Peter Bevacqua hired as the Chief Business Officer of the USGA – a position created specifically to generate more revenue sources for the company.

On the equipment front, Driver has refused to correctly address questions of technology. The existing USGA proposal to alter grooves on the clubface, instead of addressing the golf ball, is widely regarded as unlikely to do anything significant for professional golf. Many consider the proposal a response to the 0.01% of all golfers that are talented enough to play at the highest level. The proposal can subsequently punish amateurs and weekend enthusiasts who, to a limited extent, benefit from the forgiveness of these grooves but could never hit a golf ball with the kind of force and swing velocity that today’s professionals can.

In short, Walter Driver has been a black eye for the USGA in his time as President. If you consider that he was the head of the competition committee for one of the most poorly run US Open’s in history – the debacle at Shinnecock in 2004 – then his record looks even worse.
No wonder, then, that I was appalled to read Furman Bisher’s Atlanta Journal Constitution blog on Saturday. Entitled “USGA Chief Born for the Job,” Bisher goes on to completely ruin his reputation as a golf journalist with what is clearly a story plant by Driver in response to the bevy of criticism facing him for his failures as USGA President.

(I invite you to read the blog before continuing, but you will not lose out too much if you wait until we’re done here.)

Furman Bisher is recognized as a great golf writer. Through a long career, he has penned a lot of memorable writing. This entry, though, is in complete contrast to his track record to the point of embarrassment.

Bisher gushes about Driver in the entire blog entry in such a fashion that I originally thought the piece was a parody out of The Onion. Driver’s very short biography is nothing short of brown-nosing at its worst. The career highlights – partner at a prestigious Atlanta lawfirm, club champion at Peachtree Country Club (which has no black members) – are glossed to appear impressive. Bisher stoops so low as to say that Walter Driver is “such an awesome name.”

Regarding Driver’s time at the USGA, it was as though Driver was ghostwriting for Bisher. Concerning the aforementioned disaster at Shinnecock Hills, Driver – er, Bisher – blames the championship failures on the now-departed Meeks and Moraghan. They were released almost one and three years after the championship was completed respectively, so it is likely they were scapegoats. Considering also that Meeks supposedly retired from his position, placing the blame for 2004 on him is a stab in the back of a well-respected USGA official by Driver.

As for how Driver has treated USGA employees that are still with the organization, Bisher merely brushes over the subject. He simply says that Driver “saw fit to whittle” away benefits that were a long-standing part of the compensation package for employees as part of Driver's effort to cut costs. The measure worked so well that the USGA faces several years of operating losses according to those close to the organization. I suppose there really does not have to be a connection between breaking even and cutting costs, right?

Bisher also lashes out at the media for blaming Driver for all of the above that happened during his tenure. Referring to Driver as “a susceptible target, tall, well-constructed and rather handsome in a rustic sort of way,” Bisher says several times in the entry that the media were unfairly pinning blame on the President.

Bisher claims that the media made “unspecified charges” against Driver for the setup this year at Oakmont. While an improvement, most critics of the 2007 Open (players and media) say that the current setups do not allow for players to actually test their skill in a USGA examination. The setup is too focused on power, calls for a lack of imagination in shotmaking, and creates conditions that do not allow for golfers to thrive. In essence, the “unspecified charge” is that the US Open is no longer a test to find the best golfer, but rather an attempt to identify the golfer that gets the best combination of solid shots and breaks.

Bisher goes on to quote Bob Verdi, esteemed writer at GolfWorld, in a fashion that is actually out of context. Verdi is attributed as saying that Walter Driver can “strut even while standing still,” which Bisher takes a compliment of the USGA President. Rather, though, it was actually written as a shot at Driver. If you take a look at Verdi’s June 22, 2007 piece following the US Open, the paragraph containing the quote actually mocks Driver for his revisionist attitudes toward the Opens of recent years and for his self-aggrandizing demeanor. I guess Bisher was told by Driver that it was alright to write in a revisionist fashion about a figure who is revisionist by nature.

If the piece to that point had not left you with a sense of compassion for poor Walter Driver, Bisher goes on to note that Driver’s handicap has crept up a full two shots during his tenure as President. Oh no! God forbid that Driver’s game should suffer while he is acting as what Bisher calls a “change agent” and acting in a fashion widely considered detrimental to the most important golf organization in America.

This Bisher blog entry makes me sick to my stomach. It is a weak attempt by Driver to find a susceptible media ally and prop up his own image as he walks out the door. Driver is only concerned about one thing: himself. It is embarrassing that a man as selfish and self-promoting as he is the President of an organization whose charge is to better the game of golf. He has failed on a number of fronts as President and needs to own up to his mistakes. Instead, though, he is choosing to try to revise history and paint himself in a complimentary light.

This article is just another illustration that the USGA has gone in the wrong direction under his leadership. I am a critic of the USGA, yes. In reality, though, I am largely a critic of the USGA because of Driver. There are many talented and dedicated people working at the USGA and I have had the good fortune to speak with a number of them over the years. They love golf and want to see it thrive. While they and I may disagree at times on how best to get there, it is clear that the debate is for a higher purpose. It is with dismay that I trash the head of an organization supported by so many great people. It is with great joy, though, that I await for the next USGA President to take office.