PGA Tour drops the ball on censored interview with Sony Open leader Matt Every

PGA Tour officials made an error when they allowed a censored version of an interview in which Sony Open leader Matt Every discussed his arrest and suspension for marijuana possession to go up on its website.

“There was a misunderstanding on how to handle the comments [about the suspension and drug use],” Joel Schuchmann, the tour’s director of communications, told us Saturday about the tour's partnership with Turner Sports, which manages PGATour.com. “Basically, it was a mistake on our part and it shouldn’t have happened.”

Tour officials wanted no embellishment of Every’s controversial comments in the site’s Tour Report but did not direct anyone to omit his words from the online transcript, according to Schuchmann, who said he fixed the problem after getting wind of it on Twitter.

Doctoring the transcript “shouldn’t have been done,” Schuchmann said. “It’s been corrected and it’s now up in its normal state.”

What tour officials objected to was 28-year-old Every -- who had a two-shot edge heading into Saturday’s third round at Honolulu's Waialae Country Club -- saying there were worse things in the world than smoking pot. By now you have probably seen the uncomfortable interview in which Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman asked Every about his 2010 arrest. Every actually brought the issue up himself in a post-round media meet-up on Friday, but the PGA Tour declined to post several Q&As related to the taboo subject.

"Sometimes you get stuff thrown at you that you weren’t expecting," Every said in a discussion about why his career may not be as far along as those of other golfers his age. "I got in trouble two years ago, and then broke my finger the same year."

You would have seen those words in the transcript of Every’s interview that the PGA Tour initially posted on its website, but you would not have found additional references to the golfer’s situation -- which he alluded to right off the bat when he told reporters he "got in trouble off the tour."

Every even broke the unwritten rule -- or perhaps it is written somewhere, far, far away from inquiring minds -- that thou shalt not speak of punitive measures handed down from PGA powers-that-be. "I felt like my penalty for getting in trouble was not only the three months but being on the Nationwide Tour last year," he said, an obvious reference to a suspension he received for his transgressions.

Every did not let the entire cat out of the bag, saying "there’s some stuff I can’t talk about," but he let it be known that he was not happy with his punishment.

"I was pissed at the way it was handled," he said. "I don't know. I'm not a‑‑ I don't do drugs. It was a crappy deal, man. Wrong place, wrong time, perfect storm, and you know, I got three months out of it. It's over with.

"I'm not mad at the tour," Every added. "They did what they had to do. I totally understand it. But it's over with."

Every clarified that he was more upset with the way the police handled the situation, but suggested a month’s suspension would have been a more fitting discipline for charges that, according to reports, authorities ended up dropping.

Married and with a child on the way, Every defended himself, saying he was "not like this party animal," and stated he had not ditched his friends after the incident. He also noted he wasn’t about to drop a dime if one of his buddies inhaled some weed, and that, basically, it was nobody’s damn business.

"If one of my friends likes to smoke marijuana every now and then, I'm not going to say, well, you can't be my friend anymore," Every said. "Honestly, man, I know more people who smoke marijuana than who don't smoke marijuana. I know that's probably not the politically correct thing to say, but it's the truth. It's not a big deal to me. Like I don't frown upon people doing that stuff. I don't do it, but I don't frown upon it."

A tour spokesperson was initially unaware that someone had messed with the site’s transcript. Several minutes after this reporter e-mailed the missing portion, the full ASAP interview made its way to the tour’s site.