4 things we learned from Ted Bishop’s sexist tweet flap

Bishop, no doubt, learned a lesson about having a hair trigger and letting his emotions get the better of him, and we came away from the whole sad episode with some discoveries as well.

Back in the old days, elected officials caught with their hands in the till, or other places they ought not be, would point the finger at the real culprit: demon alcohol. In today’s world of 24-hour news cycles, Twitter and Instagram, Bishop and others blamed social media for his downfall.

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee put the onus on “cyberbullying” and Bishop followed his lead.

“I should have been banned from social media,” Bishop said on GC’s “Morning Drive” on Tuesday about one of the punishments he believed would have been more fitting than banishment from the PGA. “I could have done some PSAs for the PGA of America that would have helped educate people on the correct usage of social media.”

Too late to salvage his reputation or his job, Bishop noted he had removed himself from Twitter and Facebook as of Thursday night. “I’m off,” he said. “I’m done.”

Phil Mickelson’s public criticism of U.S. Ryder Cup captain during the post-defeat news conference came as no surprise to Bishop, who heard Lefty raise the same issues during a pro-am at the Scottish Open in July.

“The only issue I had with what Phil said was the timing of when he said it and the venue and medium that he made the remarks in, and I told him this,” said Bishop. “I just thought those things should have been said behind closed doors to Tom or PGA of America officials, but that’s history. That’s over with.”

If Bishop had taken Mickelson’s concerns to his prickly hand-picked skipper, the outcome of the matches may have been the same but the bitter aftermath -- including Phil going public with his beefs, the bubbling over of Bishop’s pent-up emotions and his subsequent firing -- could have been different.

Put the phone down, Ted! (Photo via Ian Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports)

It didn’t work for Sarah Palin and it sure paid no dividends for Bishop, who prided himself on being a maverick in the otherwise stodgy world of golf, though others considered him a loose cannon. His shoot-from-the-hip tweet to Poulter in defense of Nick Faldo likely provided PGA officials with a smoking gun they needed to take down a man who, by his own admission, “lived on the edge for two years.”

From the time he took office, in November 2012 -- when he ticked off the USGA and R&A establishment with what we considered a proper stance against the anchored-putting ban -- to his blunt, offensive tweet and subsequent sacking a month before his term was to end, Bishop earned the reputation of, in James Corrigan’s words, “a camera-obsessed buffoon.”

In between, the former PGA prez floated the idea of taking the PGA Championship overseas and came up with an oddball plan to make golf more attractive by expanding the size of the hole. We’re hardly staunch traditionalists and welcome game-changers when it comes to boosting play and appealing to a more diverse crowd, but footgolf and holes as big as pizza pies?

While some in golf circles insist that the penalty Bishop incurred for his insensitive remarks was so-called political correctness run amok -- little more than a tempest on a tee box, and that his outburst was juvenile at worst -- others recognize the damage that insensitive language meant to denigrate others can do.

“When Bishop chose to disparage one man, the English golfer Ian Poulter, on Twitter by calling him a ‘little girl,’” wrote Karen Crouse, “he effectively demeaned all women, including his own two daughters and granddaughter.”

Certainly, examples of far more egregious sexism exist in the golf world -- from Augusta National and the R&A barring women from membership until well into the 21st century, to Michael Jordan taunting former POTUS Bill Clinton by challenging him not “to play from the little girls’ tee.”

Bishop conceded in a recent Golf World article that he did not hesitate when he tapped out ‘Lil girl’ in his jab at Poulter. “I grew up in a generation where my dad hit ground balls to me in the backyard,” he said. “If I pulled my head up, he told me I was fielding like a girl.”

The lone positive to result from Bishop’s inability to come up with an analogy that did not vilify half the population is the discussion it has sparked about gender imbalance in the game. Perhaps this unfortunate chapter in golf history can close with others reticent to spout similar gender-specific pejoratives.