12 Key Questions for 2017

Mike Wilson starts his new column Bunker Mentality by looking into its crystal ball and asks a dozen intriguing questions facing the game of golf

3. Will President Trump be Good for Golf?

Of course, he will; regardless of the PGA Tour, the R&A, the USGA and the toothless WGC distancing themselves from candidate Trump and his more extreme campaigning rhetoric.

Witness politicians worldwide, including Senate speaker Paul Ryan holding their collective noses and offering warm congratulations to the candidate-turned-President within hours of an election victory that was not such a shock as many outsiders thought.

Trump’s US golf resorts will be coining it in, wealthy recreational players revelling in playing courses owned by Mr. President, hoping some of his stardust might stick.

Meanwhile, the cache of having the most powerful man on the planet pop in for the final day of this year’s Senior PGA Championship within spitting distance of the White House, or, for that matter – and irrespective of all he said about women during an ugly election campaign – this year’s US Women’s Open at Trump, Bedminster.

Moreover, why would the spineless WGC not be lobbying to return their WGC event back to Trump Doral, the R&A to welcome Trump Turnberry back in from the cold for the 2021 Open Championship, with an invitation to Mr. President to St. Andrews 2020 probably already in the post, even the European Tour taking the Scottish Open to Trump’s other magnificent Scottish links course near Aberdeen.

Power, especially where sport and politics meet, is the most powerful aphrodisiac on offer, perhaps the only (Spanish) fly in the ointment could be in China, where The Donald’s overtures to Taiwan have irked the USA’s bank managers in Beijing, but, all in all, never mind Beijing, it’ll be more a case of Kerching!

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