“There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.” Susan B. Anthony
On Sunday, May 19, 2019, on the eighteenth green of Bethpage Black, “The People’s Country Club,” PGA Master Professional Suzy Whaley, presented the Wanamaker Trophy, to Brooks Koepka, winner of the 101st PGA Championship.
And with that symbolic gesture, The PGA of America, the ruling body of golf with its 29,000 members, instantly became more open, encompassing, and inclusive.
Because, by far, the most significant piece of history, among all the other groundbreaking news gleaned from the 101st PGA Championship, is that a woman now directs the PGA and the tournament it annually conducts.
But not just any woman.
On November 9, 2018, the membership of the PGA of America elected Suzy Whaley as the 41st and first female President of a worldwide organization that has, historically, been slow to embrace ethnic, gender, and racial equality.
America’s past, including the golf business, as we are all uncomfortably aware, has not been kind to women and minorities.
“Men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others shall have.”-Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, abolishing slavery, leading to the passage of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution, granting citizenship and voting rights to people of color and significantly increasing the civil rights of all men in America.
It would take fifty-seven years before the passage of the nineteenth amendment in 1920, granted those same rights, privileges, and responsibilities of citizenship to all females.
Unfortunately, the business of golf would lag even further behind in granting that same equality to minorities, people of color, and women.
The Professional Golfers’ Association of America was founded in 1916 by Rodman Wanamaker, whose name adorns the oversized trophy Brooks Koepka hosted at Bethpage Black.
It would take forty-five long years of struggle and perseverance before the PGA opened their membership to minorities and remove a “Caucasian-only” clause in their by-laws, allowing Charlie Sifford in 1961, to become the first black member of the PGA.
Almost 100 years after the United States Constitution had supposedly guaranteed equal rights to people of color.
Another sixteen more years would pass before the bias, intolerance, and discrimination of a predominately white and partisan organization would be exhausted.
Women were finally allowed to join the PGA in 1977.
And thirty-seven more punishing years before a woman talented enough, smart enough and good enough, was able to rise through the ranks.
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.” -Elisabeth Cady Stanton
On November 22, 2014, PGA Master Professional and LPGA Professional Suzy Whaley was elected Secretary of the PGA Board of Directors, becoming the first female officer in the history of the PGA of America.
Almost exactly 100 years after women gained the franchise granting them equality under the law and the right to vote.
Irony indeed and that poignant presentation on the grounds of a public golf course was hugely indicative of just how far-reaching the arc of the PGA of America has evolved as an organization, as a major championship and as a manifestation of women’s rights in a world fraught with misogyny, discrimination, and inequity.
As a husband, father, and PGA Member, I could not be prouder of America, the PGA Organization, and President Whaley.
Who is Suzy Whaley, and how did she become, what arguably most people would consider, one of the most potent and persuasive figures in all of golf?
To begin with, her list of accomplishments is staggering.
PGA Professionals typically wear many hats, but most tend to specialize in one of three areas, namely as Teachers, Players, and Administrators.
President Whaley excels in all three.
She served as a PGA Head Professional at Blue Fox Run in Avon, Connecticut.
She is universally acknowledged as one of the top instructors in the game having garnered almost every teaching award in the world including GOLF’s “Top 100 Teachers in America, Golf Digest Top 50 Instructor, two-time Connecticut PGA Teacher of the Year and a US Kids Golf Master Teacher.
She is an incredible athlete and competed professionally on the LPGA Tour and became only the second woman in history to play in a regular PGA Tour event following Babe Zaharias when she qualified for the 2003 Greater Hartford Open.
She competed in both the 2002 and 2005 PGA Professional Championships, won the Connecticut PGA Club Professional Championship along with competing in the USGA Senior Women’s Open and well as the LPGA Senior Women’s Championship.
She also has worked for ESPN as an LPGA golf commentator and owns her successful instruction and coaching business, “Suzy Whaley Golf.”
She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina with a BS in Economics where she played on the women’s golf team.
She is currently the PGA Director of Instruction for the Country Club at Mirasol in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida where Suzy and her husband Bill, live with their two daughters, Jennifer and Kelly.
All in all, President Whaley is a remarkable, unique, and extraordinary human being, golf professional, wife, and mother.
When one is confronted daily with the cynicism of a fractured society and the ever-increasing polarization of the body politic, it is comforting to realize that golf, a game that once defined itself as the “Game of Kings” with all its inherent and symbolic elitism, has now chosen a woman to lead its governing organization into a new era of progress, equality, and egalitarianism.
One can only fathom where that path might take us, but like Suzy Whaley’s life and career, it should be historic.
I had a chance to sit down with President Whaley and ask her, among many topics, about the future of golf, her plans for the PGA, and introducing new players to the game.
Please listen here.
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