At the World Golf Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in March, David Graham approached former PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and congratulated him on being inducted and joining him in receiving golf’s highest honor. As they shook hands, Graham looked him in dead in the eye and added, “I want you to know. I’ve got a long memory.”
Finchem nodded knowingly and responded, “Yes, I know what you are referring to.”
That would be an incident that happened more than 25 years ago, when Graham, an Australian who won two majors during his Hall of Fame career was unceremoniously ousted as captain of the International Presidents Cup team by his own players, just two months before the second biennial international team competition was to be held in September 1996. Some of what happened during a player meeting in July at a Grand Hotel conference room near Royal Lytham in St. Annes, England, where the British Open was being contested that year, still is a mystery but this much is clear: it damaged the reputation of a good man willing to give his time and effort to grow the fledgling event.
To this day, Graham is convinced Greg Norman, then the No. 1 player in the world and now the face of LIV Golf, and fellow Aussie Steve Elkington orchestrated what one participant in the proceedings dubbed “this mutinous act.”
Mike Bodney, who spent 25 years with the PGA Tour and served as the Tour’s senior vice president of championship management, was one of three officials in the room and remembers the meeting didn’t start out the way it ended.
“It was the last thing I ever expected to happen and one of the oddest things I ever experienced in my life,” Bodney said.
Initially, Graham agreed to talk about what happened all those years ago. For more than two decades he has taken the high road, speaking once to Jaime Diaz in 1996 for a story in Sports Illustrated, but primarily staying mum on the topic. When I finally reached Graham on the phone earlier this month, he demurred. He sensed nothing to be gained by rehashing a sad moment in an otherwise distinguished career. But as we continued talking Graham began to pick at an old scab. He recounted how he and three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin were selected as the first Presidents Cup captains, and Bodney credits Graham for his role in getting the event off the ground.
Graham was truly honored to be the first captain of the International team. But after the first event, which was won on home soil…
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