Derek Sprague has been selected as the next CEO at the PGA of America, the first time a club professional has been chosen to lead the organization in nearly 20 years.
Sprague, who spent 25 years at his hometown Malone Golf Club in New York, also becomes the first CEO to have served as PGA president. He takes over for Seth Waugh, the former Deutsche Bank Americas CEO who took over in 2018 until announcing his retirement earlier this year.
“To have a leader at the helm who knows every detail of the association and what it means to be a PGA of America Member will enable our association to succeed far into the future,” said Don Rea Jr., president of the PGA of America.
Sprague, a PGA of America member since 1993, most recently was general manager of the TPC Sawgrass. He was hired in 2018 after working at Liberty National in New Jersey, which hosted the Presidents Cup during his tenure.
In his final year of a two-year term as PGA president, Jimmy Walker won the 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol after a rain-soaked weekend that nearly carried over to Monday. Presenting the Wanamaker Trophy was his final act as president.
But his roots were in upstate New York, as the general manager and director of golf at Malone, where he ran every aspect of the club.
Sprague takes over at a time when golf is going through a big turnover in leadership. Martin Slumbers has retired as CEO of the R&A. Mollie Marcoux Samaan recently stepped down as commissioner of the LPGA. Guy Kinnings recently completed his first year as CEO of the European tour. And PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced this week a search for a new position of CEO at the commercial PGA Tour Enterprises.
The PGA of America announced earlier this week it would pay its Ryder Cup players for the first time, a combination of $300,000 earmarked for charity and a $200,000 stipend.
"Throughout my career I have made it a priority to bring people together around a common cause,” Sprague said in a statement announcing his hire. “At a time of profound change in golf, there is also great opportunity for our association and our members.
"It is my task, alongside the officers and board, to elevate the profession of our more than 30,000 PGA of America golf professionals while ensuring the health of the association and its relationships within our industry.”
Jim Awtrey, the former Oklahoma golf coach and head professional at various Oklahoma golf clubs, was the first CEO of the PGA of America in 1993. He left in 2005 and was succeeded by broadcast executive Joe Steranka. He was followed by Pete Bevacqua, a USGA business officer who left to join NBC and now is athletic director at Notre Dame; and then Waugh.
Kerry Haigh, the chief championships officer for the PGA of America, had been acting as interim CEO since Waugh's retirement in June.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
FILE - Derek Sprague, President of the PGA of America, applauds as Inbee Park of South Korea raises the KPMG Women's PGA golf championship trophy at Westchester Country Club Sunday, June 14, 2015, in Harrison, N.Y. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)
A day before a potential government shutdown, the House rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s new plan Thursday to fund operations and suspend the debt ceiling, as Democrats and dozens of Republicans refused to accommodate his sudden demands.
Here's the latest:
President Joe Biden has discussed the potential shutdown with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday.
“There’s still time,” Jean-Pierre said, to avoid a partial government shutdown.
She said Republicans created the situation and are responsible for fixing it.
“Republicans blew up this deal. They did, and they need to fix this,” Jean-Pierre said.
That could involve splitting up the previous efforts — government funding, disaster and agricultural aid into separate votes — with a debt ceiling vote potentially later.
They’re meeting privately during the lunch hour to discuss next steps, with a shutdown less than 12 hours away.
That’s according to multiple people who received an update in a closed door Democratic Caucus meeting.
But there was no discussion in the meeting on whether a deal is being discussed or the details of legislation.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to return to a stopgap funding agreement he had negotiated with Democrats.
Schumer, a New York Democrat, called that agreement in a floor speech Friday morning “the quickest, simplest, and easiest way we can make sure the government stays open while delivering critical emergency aid to the American people.”
Johnson abandoned that legislation earlier this week after first Elon Musk, then President-elect Donald Trump opposed it. But the Republican speaker is facing few options to avert a government shutdown at the end of the day while also appeasing the demands of his fellow Republicans.
Democratic leaders so far have demanded that he stick to their deal in order to gain their support to pass it through Congress.
Friday morning, Trump continued his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — and if not, let the closures “begin now.”
He issued his latest demand as Speaker Johnson arrived early at the Capitol, instantly holing up with Vice President-elect JD Vance and some of the most conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus who helped sink Trump’s bill in a spectacular Thursday evening flop.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump does not fear government shutdowns the way Johnson and the lawmakers see federal closures as political losers that harm the livelihoods of Americans. The incoming Trump administration vows to slash the federal budget and fire thousands of employees. Trump himself sparked the longest government shutdown in history in his first term at the White House.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laid blame for the failure of a package to fund the federal government on Republican donors and the GOP’s economic agenda.
“Republicans would rather cut taxes for billionaire donors than fund research for children with cancer,” Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on the social media platform Bluesky.
The House Democrat’s leader further predicted a government shutdown “will crash the economy, hurt working class Americans and likely be the longest in history.”
“Welcome back to the MAGA swamp,” he concluded.
Before 9 a.m., a number of the speaker’s biggest critics brought their grievances to a private meeting as a shutdown deadline looms over Capitol Hill. Reps. Chip Roy, Andy Biggs, Bob Good and others, all who voted against the Trump-backed plan Thursday, met with Johnson as Republicans look for a way forward on a short-term spending deal that includes a suspension of the nation’s debt limit.
Good of Virginia came out and said he would surprised if there was a vote Friday on any path forward. Moments later, Rep. Lauren Boebert said Republicans were making progress and having Vice President-elect JD Vance in the room is helping move things toward a resolution that can get a majority on the floor.
“I think President Trump was possibly, sold a bad bill yesterday,” the Colorado lawmaker said. “I did not want to see a failure on the House floor for the first demand that President Trump is making.”
But, she added, the failure on the floor has forced many of her colleagues to come together Friday.
As the speaker twisted Thursday in Washington, his peril was on display at Turning Point USA’s conservative AmericaFest confab, where Trump ally and 2016 campaign architect Steven Bannon stirred thousands with a takedown of the Louisiana Republican.
“Clearly, Johnson is not up to the task. He’s gotta go. He’s gotta go,” Bannon said, drawing cheers and whistles.
Bannon, both a bellwether of and influencer on the mood among Trump’s core supporters, wasn’t done.
“He doesn’t have what we call the right stuff — that combination of guts and moxie and savvy and toughness,” he said, comparing Johnson, a reserved, polite lawyer, to the gleeful brutishness of the president-elect and his populist backers. “You can punch MAGA in the face and they’re going to get up off the canvas, and they’re going to punch you back three times harder.”
Bannon didn’t float a replacement for Johnson but emphasized that the job description for any speaker — and every other Republican in Washington — is simple: “We have nothing to discuss. It’s only about the execution of President Trump’s plan.”
And he called Thursday’s proposed deal “laughable.”
“It’s not a serious proposal,” Jeffries said as he walked to Democrats’ own closed-door caucus meeting. Inside, Democrats were chanting, “Hell, no!”
Coming and going outside Speaker Mike Johnson’s office Thursday night, House Republicans offered little clarity on a path forward for a budget deal after a Trump-endorsed proposal failed to pass.
Rep. Kat Cammack, a Republican who voted against the bill, told reporters that “this was not an easy vote for constitutional conservatives.” She added, “We’re going to work through the night and figure out a plan.”
“We are still working diligently. and we are still making progress,” Rep. Lisa McClain said, without offering further details.
“We tried several things today most of our members went for, but the Democrats decided that they want to try and shut it down, but we’re going to keep working,” Rep. Steve Scalise, the Republican majority leader, told reporters. Nearly three dozen Republicans joined Democrats in voting down the resolution.
Vice President Kamala Harris cancelled a planned trip to Los Angeles with Washington on the verge of a government shutdown.
She had been scheduled to travel to her home state late Thursday, but instead will remain in the capital, the White House said, after Republicans backed away from a bipartisan compromise to fund the government.
The House rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s new plan Thursday to fund operations and suspend the debt ceiling.
In a hastily convened evening vote punctuated by angry outbursts over the self-made crisis, the lawmakers failed to reach the two-thirds threshold needed for passage — but House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared determined to reassess, before Friday’s midnight deadline.
“We’re going to regroup and we will come up with another solution, so stay tuned,” Johnson said after the vote. The cobbled-together plan didn’t even get a majority, with the bill failing 174-235.
The outcome proved a massive setback for Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, who rampaged against Johnson’s bipartisan compromise, which Republicans and Democrats had reached earlier to prevent a Christmastime government shutdown.
▶ Read more about the vote and where things stand
FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the damage and federal response to Hurricane Helene, in Swannanoa, N.C., Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks briefly to reporters just before a vote on an interim spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
