Inexcusable.

Paine College's decision to ground its golf team's opportunity to play at the PGA Minority Collegiate Golf Championship in Port St. Lucie, Fla., last week was a case of administrative negligence. Those who mishandled the decision should be held accountable, including athletic director Ron Spry and golf coach Fred Summers.

"It's a debacle," said Joe Bowles, an Augusta commissioner who was instrumental in getting the golf program established at Paine College three years ago. "This is the golf capital of the world. If you can't raise money for a golf team to take one trip here ... it's inexplicable. It really is. It's one of those things where you scratch your head and say, 'What were they thinking?' "

The answer to that seems to be that Paine wasn't thinking at all. It clearly didn't comprehend what a public relations nightmare this would evolve into for the cash-strapped school. Or that it would be devastating to its student-athletes and potentially ruinous for a young golf program that has advocates as prominent as former PGA Tour pro Lee Elder.

The scathing public criticism that Spry and the college have received since the story broke Friday that the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champions were denied an opportunity to compete for the school's first national title is justified. It seems scandalously incompetent how the situation was handled and sends a message to the school and community that Paine College will not support all of its athletic teams to the end.

If Spry and/or Summers would like to refute that, it would be nice if either returned repeated messages left on their respective voicemails. But neither has commented since Spry confirmed the story Friday, leaving everyone to speculate why they didn't ask for assistance from the community to pay for the relatively small expenses of the team.

"I really don't know the bottom line," said senior Antwan Hawthorne, an Augusta native and Richmond Academy graduate who was named to the all-conference first team along with teammate Sean Lucas. "I can tell you what I think is going on. I want to find out the reason I couldn't go down to the championship my senior year. And I'm going to find out before I graduate."

The decision to prevent the golf team from traveling last weekend was made outside of the athletic department. Brandon Brown, Paine's vice president of institutional development, said the school has been under a college-wide spending moratorium for several weeks -- affecting everything including faculty trips to conferences. Ironically, Paine president George Bradley can't be reached to comment because he's traveling all week on behalf of the school.

"That decision comes from the top level of college officials and is to protect the interests of all the students, faculty and staff at Paine College," Brown said. "We feel very strong that we must exercise sound financial judgments. Sometimes when the upper administration hands down decisions, it is not the way ideally we would all like things to happen. But we have to put the interests of the college first and not just individual programs or individuals."

Brown went so far as to say that Spry "was an advocate to make sure all of our athletic programs are treated fairly." But that in no way absolves Spry or Summers from the way they mishandled the situation.

There is no way that either of them could have been clueless that a spending moratorium was in effect, and to wait until the 11th hour to notify the team that it would not be making a trip it earned was slack and disrespectful.

"Through the operations of the college we were able to clearly allow all of our athletic programs and all of our other areas of the college to know that we were under the moratorium," Brown said. "This decision wasn't a decision that was made in haste. The moratorium has been going on now for several weeks."

That's what rankles the golf team's supporters the most.

"I understand a moratorium on funding except for essential educational items, but for a golf tournament they could have called the (Augusta Golf Association) or somebody," said Bowles, a former chief financial officer at Paine who is planning to conduct his own fund-raiser on behalf of the golf program. "If there was a moratorium on spending, the golf coach and AD would have known that. They had the two weeks to get the funds. Somebody needs to explain why they didn't try to raise money externally."

With all due respect to the Augusta-Richmond County Coliseum Authority trying to lure a new tenant to its building, this is not a basketball town. Augusta is a golf town, synonymous around the world for the game played at the Masters Tournament. Golf is our local franchise.

So don't you think somewhere in the Augusta community -- that includes advocates of the game such as the AGA, Augusta National Golf Club and The First Tee of Augusta -- a measly few thousand dollars could have been raised if anyone had been aware that the school needed help?

The players -- several of whom lost out on opportunities that could have opened doors for them, including a $10,000 scholarship already applied for by Lucas and coveted invitations to elite amateur events -- believe something is amiss.

"I really want to get down to what was the purpose, because funding could not be the purpose," Hawthorne said. "Several phone calls would've been made if the school didn't have the funding."

Hawthorne made the same point that many others have raised about Spry's commitment to doing what was best for the student-athletes. Spry is also the school's longtime basketball coach approaching 500 career wins.

"If the basketball team would've made it to Massachusetts to play in the (NCAA Division II Elite Eight) like Augusta State, they would've been there," Hawthorne said. "And how much money would that have cost? There's more people on a basketball team than a golf team.

"I believe this 110 percent. (Spry) doesn't want anything to outshine basketball. I've heard stories about him previously and I didn't believe them, because you're innocent until proven guilty. With this situation right here it puts it all in perspective what everybody has said about this man. I just think it's wrong."

The level of displeasure with Spry's leadership has reached crescendo over this issue. It is certainly warranted in this case, and the administration that pulled the financial rug out from under the golf team should listen.

"We're very proud of all athletic programs and want to do everything to provide the resources for our student-athletes to be able to compete," Brown said. "It's a time at the college where we are excited about what's going to be happening for our students over the next few years. We expect that through sound financial judgment that we will be back on track. We are excited that when our students return we will have the necessary resources in place to indeed continue that Paine College legacy of excellence and quality education."

It will take more than words for some people in the Paine College community to trust that again.