Official: 2022 PGA Championship at Trump's course is still on
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — Banners touting the future sites of PGA Championships hang over the media workspace at Whistling Straits, site of this year's tournament.
There's Baltusrol in 2016, Quail Hollow in '17, Bellerive in '18, Bethpage Black in '19, TPC Harding Park in '20 and Kiawah Island in '21.
Conspicuously absent, however, is a banner for the 2022 tournament, scheduled for Trump Bedminster in Bedminster, N.J. The PGA awarded the championship to the course in May 2014, so does that mean the organization is having second thoughts about its partnership with outspoken presidential candidate Donald Trump?
"I would say you're to make nothing of it," PGA CEO Pete Bevacqua said Wednesday of the omission both in the media center and the on-course signage, where the other future sites are also advertised. "We are scheduled to go to the Trump Bedminster for our PGA Championship in 2022."
Bevacqua also said that the 2017 Senior PGA Championship, scheduled for Trump National-Washington D.C. will also go ahead as planned.
"I mean obviously everybody in this room's aware of the situation and presidential politics that is we don't want to get involved in," Bevacqua continued. "We're not here to talk about presidential politics."
The banner omissions were curious in light of the PGA's decision last month to move its 2015 Grand Slam of Golf from Trump National in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. The move was made after Trump made controversial comments about Mexican immigrants.
A new home for the Grand Slam, scheduled for mid-October, has yet to be announced.
Though Bevacqua clearly did not want to be talking about Donald Trump, one reporter, who self identified as Latino, pressed the issue and asked the CEO about his feelings on Trump's comments.
"I would tell you, we have a relationship with the Trump organization as a golf entity," Bevacqua said. "That's what we're focused on.
"We don't agree with everything that's been said or done, but we're monitoring the situation and we made the one decision about the Grand Slam and we haven't made really more decisions than that, other than what's already previously scheduled."
A moderator then ended the press conference.
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Kevin Kaduk is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kevinkaduk@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!Follow @KevinKaduk
