Waking up in the land of Trump

About a month before the election, an email went out to all the editors-in-chief at North Coast Media. The email, from our editorial director, asked: “What is your plan for covering the outcome of the presidential election?”

Of the six magazines, most had already done some type of story on where the two candidates stood on the respective industries they cover. My guess is that most of us EICs assumed it would be Hillary Clinton being sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2017. The email chain created a little discussion, then faded.

Out of curiosity I went back through my deleted emails and looked at my response to the query. In short, I wrote:

“If Trump were to win, Golfdom would have to cover that as a major news story because he’s a multi-golf course owner. If he loses, I think we go on about our day…”

Well, here we are. Trump won. It’s a major story not just to our industry, but around the world. Some (the nearly 50 percent who voted for him) are excited for the change in Washington. Others (the nearly 50 percent who voted against him), are riddled with worry, for various reasons.

In my above scenario, I thought I’d be “going on about my day” the morning after the election. Instead, Associate Editor Grant B. Gannon and I were calling every Trump maintenance facility in America attempting to get comments, thoughts, predictions from our readers who now are employed by the president-elect. (We came up mostly empty — “confidentiality agreement” were the words of the day.) We moved on to industry pundits, and that story did make it in this issue.

Not only are we, like most of the world, talking about Trump’s rise to the White House, we also immediately made the decision to put him on our cover. There was a lot of debate on this decision. Was it too soon? Will people see it as an endorsement of Trump? And so on.

No matter how polarizing he may be, we can’t shy away from the news of the day. Trump is a multi-course owner, he’s invested in the game and he’s the next president of the United States. Regardless of anyone’s political beliefs, it’s a fact that he is the new Commander-in-Chief. He is clearly cover-worthy.

This story will continue to evolve and we’ll continue to cover it. We asked our readers in a survey (out now) what they thought about the election results and what they think it means for the industry. I guarantee that you will see that story in the next issue of Golfdom.

We can set aside politics to cover the industry. And we’re confident our readers can set aside their politics and follow along.

⦁ For a few years in a row I used this space to rave about what a great year I just had, recapping my top moments in list form. I said you would stop believing me if I kept raving about how good every year is, but I just couldn’t help it.

Well, this year, I can help it… because 2016 was a difficult year. I’ll just mention quickly that I lost my mom, June, in May of 2016. She was a lovely woman who worked hard to help me get where I am today.

It’s natural for us to lose our parents as we grow older. I’m just stunned to have lost both my parents before age 40.

(And how many of you did I just stun by revealing I’m not yet 40? Yeah, I first started going gray in high school.)

But, good news: 2017 is comeback time. That column where I rave about how great the year was — it’ll be back in December 2017. Count on it.