Globe On Trump: "The man loves his golf, and by many accounts has a good bit of skill when playing."

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Michael Whitmer of the Boston Globe tries to dissect Donald Trump's golf humblebrags and concludes that yes, there may be some exaggerations, but that the next president also is decent enough to back up his claims.

He writes:

Fact-checking a candidate during a campaign is par for the course — pardon the pun — but some of Trump’s claims can be confirmed. His name is included with the list of club champions at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. A plaque recognizing his hole-in-one on the 12th hole at Trump Golf Links Ferry Point in the Bronx has been added to the tee box (8-iron, 149 yards, Oct. 9, 2013). His GHIN handicap index — available for perusal to anyone with Internet access — shows the 20 most recent 18-hole scores Trump has posted. The low, a 70, is from August 2013, and came in a tournament; the highest, an 86, was posted in October 2014.

Video: Phil, Spieth Kick Off Golf's Talk Show Season

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I forgot to mention in my Forward Press column on golf's two cutting-edge talk shows that in addition to landing big "gets", the shows were likely to deliver entertaining fodder that most pre-scripted talk shows fail to produce.

Jordan Spieth's part-one sitdown with Feherty was interesting in ways I hadn't quite expected and the subsequent viewer reviews have been glowing for the season debut. (The show also drew a 325,000 avg. and was the second most-watched Feherty premiere ever). You can get a flavor of the first episode from this page of clips. The talk of Tiger has gone viral-ish because of Spieth's claim that players do not respect Tiger's greatness enough. His comments on underestimating Jason Day will appear in part two next Monday, March 14.

And Phil Mickelson was as engaging as expected on the season two debut of Callaway Live. What I didn't expect was the display of acting chops from Phil in this bit:

Bishop Book! PGA Of America Threatens "Judicial Intervention"

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Golf.com's Marika Washchyshyn interviews former PGA of America president Ted Bishop about his upcoming book and as you can imagine, his former organization isn't too thrilled.

From the Q&A on the same day former Bishop friend Pete Bevacqua had his CEO contract renewed through 2021, the ex-PGA president revealed more about the book and this:

I’ve had virtually no contact with the PGA of America since October 2014. I did have a brief conversation with Derek Sprague [Bishop’s successor] in November 2014 and [PGA CEO] Pete Bevacqua in February 2015. Those are the only conversations I had with people "inside" the PGA and they were not related to my book. I have had some conversations with the PGA's outside legal counsel requesting a review of my book before it was published. At one point they threatened "judicial intervention" if I didn't cooperate. I have no plans to let the PGA's outside legal counsel see the book.