Ridley And Driver: Theeeeyyyyy'rrrrreeee Back!

Only last night did I try to dig up the USGA nominating committee folks who chipped away even more of the USGA's credibility by nominating a trophy wife while ejecting a quality committee member. Finding no names online, I emailed USGA communications and they kindly supplied the info.

Now that I've cleaned up the ejected beverage from my keyboard and screen, I give you those names from the past that many hoped they'd never see again in a USGA-related item.

Fred Ridley
Walter Driver
Youngsuk Chi
Sarah LeBrun Ingram
M.J. Mastalir, Jr.

Okay, we know how these boys work. You might as well not even bother with the last three names. The chairs in the room had more influence. Those three poor souls voted how Chairman Ridley and Father Driver wanted or faced possible jail time or whatever misery Goldman Sachs' security team cooks up.

For those of you new readers to the blog, these two are the most reviled least appreciated USGA presidents of all time who jump-started several destructive internal policies that have corporatized the organization and expedited the departure of quality individuals. They also used golf course setups to mask regulatory buffoonery to disastrous effect, making Shinnecock a verb and helping the world understand just how far some will go to protect imaginary margins over the best interests of the game. And as first revealed here, Ridley and Driver parlayed the job of president into a perksfest highlighted by private jet travel. (The rest of the jet saga was detailed here, here, here and here.)

Driver, of course, is the mastermind of so many of these dreadful policies. A Goldman man who hilariously used his Blackberry at USGA events and majors even when they were banned, he was so lovingly profiled by Furman Bisher, who swooned over the man's "awesome name" and handsomeness "in a rustic sort of way." (And you thought the Tiger email chain saga was embarrassing!)

That's about where the compliments ended.

Driver now apparently continues to be behind the overall shift in USGA culture that places power and money as priority one, no matter the human costs or impact on the game. And that's ultimately what's so sad about this latest hiccup. They've placed another member on the executive committee who is married to one of the driving forces behind disastrous USGA policies. (Reg Murphy was a big fan of shuttering Golf Journal, which ushered in the decline of the once powerful membership program.)

I'll never understand the dynamics of that whole Sea Island-Atlanta cabal, nor do I care. I just wonder what they get out of it? Because so few people respect what they do and how they do it. And the results speak for themselves. It still goes back to how the USGA governs the game and the more you take bright people out of the room and replace them with undeserving types, the more the game suffers.