Two Takes On USGA In Pinehurst: A "Magnet For Golf-Industry Employers" And "Cronyism"

The Southern Pines Pilot’s editorial board is excited about the USGA-Pinehurst-North Carolina deal announced last week amid a global pandemic that moves a few jobs, a visitor’s center and equipment testing to the region. Then again, they also wrote this:

The USGA is the arbiter, trend setter and final authority of golf in the United States.

Moving right along…

Economic and golf officials believe the USGA’s operations in Pinehurst can serve as a magnet for other golf-industry employers. Just as the club grip manufacturer Golf Pride built a new headquarters and testing facility out at Pinehurst No. 8, it’s not a stretch to think that other equipment manufacturers might cluster similar operations here, just as they do now in central California.

Well, it’s southern California actually. And yes, it’s a stretch unless the USGA is shifting its focus from protecting the game to growing the golf business.

Carolina Coastal Online’s editorial was less kind, saying the deal “smacks of cronyism” and could not have come at a worse time as the hospitality industry craters without government assistance.

But this announcement is particularly galling since it comes at a time when many businesses in the hospitality industry are experiencing financial disaster as a result of the very politicians, who are taking credit for economic growth, have diminished those prospects for others. Approximately 170,000 hospitality workers remain unemployed as the governor’s mandates restrict the numbers of customers served in restaurants and keeps bars and taverns closed under the guise to reducing the coronavirus contagion. It should be noted the governor’s original intentions were to “bend the curve” of people infected which succeeded months ago, and yet his restrictions remain in place.