Donald Trump Puts the PGA Tour in a Difficult Position at Trump National Doral

Free speech is a wonderful thing.

It is one of the cornerstones upon which this nation was built.

But while we are free to express our views publicly, this freedom is not completely devoid of consequences.

This is because as Americans, we also possess the freedom to decide who we employ, who we do business with and who we support politically.

During the past seven months, the current GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has described Mexicans who enter the United States illegally as "killers" and "rapists" and has called for the ban of all Muslims traveling to the United States.

This presents quite a challenge for an organization such as the PGA Tour that is scheduled to co-sanction this week's WGC-Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral just north of Miami.

The PGA Tour holds a tournament each year in Mexico, has Mexican members of its tour, runs an entire Latin American Tour, has many members who often compete in Middle Eastern countries and clearly has aspirations of expanding globally in the coming years.

So no one was surprised when the PGA Tour released the following statement, via Golf.com, after Trump's call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States:

"

Mr. Trump's comments are inconsistent with our strong commitment to an inclusive and welcoming environment in the game of golf. The PGA Tour has had a 53-year commitment to the Doral community, the greater Miami area and the charities that have benefited from the tournament. Given this commitment, we are moving forward with holding the 2016 event at the Blue Monster. Immediately after the completion of the 2016 tournament, we will explore all options regarding the event's future.

"

The PGA of America pulled its 2015 Grand Slam of Golf event from Trump National Los Angeles due to Trump's comments about illegal immigrants and eventually cancelled the event altogether when it couldn't find a suitable replacement in time.

According to the Independent (via Golfweek magazine), the Royal & Ancient Golf Club will also be removing Trump Turnberry from the Open Championship rota due to the real estate mogul-turned-politician's views on immigration issues.

While many may quickly conclude that leaving Trump National Doral after the 2016 WGC-Cadillac Championship ought to be a no-brainer for the Tour, this decision is far more complex than it initially appears.

Following the 1990 PGA Championship at Shoal Creek where the club's discriminatory practices were called into question and sponsors such as IBM pulled more than $2 million in advertising from the network telecast, the PGA Tour decided to implement an anti-discriminatory policy toward all tournament venues.

The Tour's guidelines, which went into effect on January 1, 1991, stated that no private club wishing to host a PGA Tour event could have membership policies or practices that discriminate against women or racial minorities (as reported by Jaime Diaz in the New York Times).

The Tour dropped several venues, including Cypress Point, which played host to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, due to what the Tour considered to be discriminatory membership policies.

However, then-PGA Tour deputy commissioner Tim Finchem did state that "We [the PGA Tour] are taking each private club we deal with on a case-by-case basis," and it is clear that the Tour had some difficulties adhering to such a broad anti-discriminatory policy through the years.

Augusta National did not admit its first female members until 2012. And while the Masters is not run by the PGA Tour, it has been a PGA Tour-sanctioned event for virtually as long as the Tour has been in existence.

This made for some embarrassing moments for the Tour and ultimately forced Finchem to make the following statement in 2012 (As reported by Bob Harig of ESPN.com):

"

The position of the PGA Tour hasn't changed. We have a policy that says when we go out and do a co-sanctioned event, we are going to play it at a club that is open to women members, open to minority members, etc. And we follow that policy carefully. In the case of the Masters, we have concluded a number of times ... we are not going to give up the Masters as a tournament on our tour. It's too important. So at the end of the day, the membership of that club has to determine their membership. And they are not doing anything illegal.

"

The Open Championship is also not an event run by the PGA Tour, but like the Masters, it has been a PGA Tour-sanctioned event for many years despite the presence of discriminatory membership policies at numerous Open Championship venues, including the R&A of St. Andrews, which just admitted its first female members last year.

Trump National Doral does not contain any discriminatory membership practices. It is a resort course that is open to the general public.

If the PGA Tour were to move the WGC-Cadillac Championship from Trump National Doral due to the political views of the individual owner, it would essentially be taking its anti-discriminatory policy to a whole new level.

What the Tour would be conveying with a decision to leave Trump National Doral is that moving forward, host courses will not only be required to adhere to its anti-discriminatory membership policies, but the individual owners (which one might assume would extend to club presidents) must also possess values consistent with the core values of the PGA Tour.

This is a slippery slope that the PGA Tour must be willing and able to navigate across the board if it hopes to avoid looking hypocritical down the road.

So while many might desire to see a high-profile organization such as the PGA Tour take strong action against those who possess discriminatory views, one could not fault the PGA Tour a great deal if it were to decide not to bring the personal views of club owners into the fray.

After all, the Tour has no control over who may come along and purchase a golf course or what a course owner or club president may say at any given moment. If the Tour were required to keep track of the personal and political views of every course owner and club president, it would likely be moving tournaments around every year while creating negative financial situations for local communities and charities that have depended upon the PGA Tour for, in some cases, decades.

The key for the PGA Tour with this decision on whether or not to leave Trump National Doral due to Trump's personal views on immigration and his proposed ban on Muslims travelling to the United States is to make its position on the matter clear as day and then comprehensively implement its strategy across every tournament it runs or sanctions around the world.

If the Tour were to say that it was leaving Trump National Doral due to Trump's personal views, that's fine. But now that same set of criteria must be applied to every single tournament it runs or sanctions, including major championships. The Tour cannot very well say that it is leaving Trump National Doral due to what it feels are discriminatory positions taken by the course owner but then continue to co-sanction Open Championship events held at clubs that do not allow women members.

And if the Tour were to decide to stay at Trump National Doral moving forward despite Trump's personal views, which the Tour has already stated are "inconsistent with our strong commitment to an inclusive and welcoming environment in the game of golf," that is also fine.

But in that case, the Tour must make it clear that it has no control over ownership changes at PGA Tour venues and that it is simply out to run tournaments at top-quality courses and have a positive financial impact on local communities and charities, and will refuse to let the discriminatory views of a single person negatively impact an entire community that depends upon the PGA Tour.

One way or the other, the Tour must move on from the position that it will look at each instance on a "case-by-case" basis. This position of course gives the Tour an out when some of the biggest events in the world decide not to comply with its membership policies, but it also leaves the Tour exposed to being accused of hypocrisy, which was the case for so many years with the Masters.

So while the easy, and perhaps more popular, decision may be for the Tour to simply up and leave Trump National Doral after the 2016 WGC-Cadillac Championship, there is a lot more riding on this decision than the Tour simply taking a stance against one man's personal views.

Whatever decision the Tour arrives at with regard to Trump will ultimately determine its entire anti-discriminatory policy moving forward.