Is Donald Trump Hurting the PGA Tour?

If he is, it look like the Tour is fighting back.

Doral was always one of my favorites tournaments on the regular PGA Tour. I’ve blogged about this before. It was at Doral Resort and Country Club, in Miami, Florida, where I had my first good chance to win a PGA Tour tournament. It was in 1966, my second year on Tour. I led wire-to-wire until I three-putted the 71st hole to go one stroke behind. On the toughest finishing hole on the American pro golf tour then and ever since to the present–the long par four 18th hole–my ten foot birdie putt for a tie for first place stopped on the right edge of the hole, with nearly half of the ball hanging over the cup. If only there had been a little earthquake.

Talk about earthquakes, Donald Trump is an earthquake these days, what with his rhetorical and volatile campaign as the presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency. Now it looks like he’s an earthquake happening to the PGA Tour.

Yesterday, at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament on the PGA Tour being held at Muirfield Village, Ohio, this week, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem announced that the Tour’s 54-year relationship with Doral in Miami is coming to an end. Next year, the World Golf Championships held there the last few years is moving to Club de Chapultepec in Mexico City and will be named the WGC-Mexico Championship.

In recent years, there have been four World Golf Championships. Three of them have been staged in the U.S. and the other one in China. Some pro golfers, especially foreigners, think too many are held in the U.S. So, they probably would welcome this change despite the controversial Donald Trump and his ownership of Doral.

Donald Trump–an avid golfer, mega real estate entrepreneur, and now a celebrity TV star–bought the Doral resort in 2012 partly because of the PGA Tour’s long-standing tournament there. Then he sank $250 million into renovating the place, much of which went into improving the Blue Monster golf course on which the tournament is played.

Mr. Trump has become one of the most controversial figures in the history of American politics. He makes such brash, judgmental remarks about people and nations. Regarding the difficult immigration problem that the U.S. faces, with 12 million illegal immigrants that has been going on for decades, Trump’s proposal for solving it is an important plank in his political platform. He said in a public speech this year that Mexico is sending us illegals that are criminals and rapists. (Of course, not all illegals are from Mexico.) That did not endear him either to Mexico or our Latino population, which now represents one-fourth of all people living in the U.S.He also says he will deport all illegals. And Trump also says constantly that if he becomes the U.S. president, he will build a very high wall along the Mexico-U.S. border to keep the illegals out, and he will make Mexico pay for it. Yeah, sure! He says he will do so by taxing funds that illegals send to their families back in their former homelands, most of which live in Mexico. Such statements caused former Mexican President Vincente Fox to say of Donald Trump, “he reminds me of Hitler.”

Finchem revealed that Cadillac, the long-time sponsor of the tournament, did not renew its contract. He said the Tour couldn’t find any other company to take its place. What is surprising about that is that General Motors, the parent company of Cadillac, has a long relationship with the PGA Tour as a sponsor of its tournaments, especially with Buick and Cadillac. And both Cadillac and General Motors have been doing financially pretty well lately after being bailed out by the federal government during the Great Recession. Thus, it looks like Cadillac had other than financial reasons for ending its sponsorship.

Commissioner Finchem, the ultimate diplomat, explained concerning the demise of Cadillac’s involvement as a PGA Tour sponsor, “It’s a struggle to get a customer to spend those kinds of dollars and share the billing.” What! That was a premiere tournament with great TV viewership. It raises questions about the future of the Tour’s other sponsors. Finchem added, “From a golf standpoint, we have no issues with Donald Trump. For a political standpoint, we have are neutral.”

I doubt that’s the full story. I would like to have been a fly on the wall during both the Tour’s discussions with Cadillac about this loss and the PGA Tour’s Tournament Policy Board’s meetings when they discussed these matters and decided on going to Mexico. The board consists of ten voluntary directors: four prominent businessmen, the top three executives of the PGA of America, and four Tour players. The board decides policy and commissioner implements it.

Trump first broke the news the night before in a televised interview with Fox TV’s Sean Hannity. Trump said, “the PGA Tour has put profit ahead of thousands of American jobs, million of dollars in revenue, . . . . This decision only further embodies the very reason I am running for president of the United States.”

So, no matter what the PGA Tour says about this matter, it looks like it is snubbing The Donald due to his many critical remarks, especially his disparaging Mexicans and Mexico, by transferring an elite PGA Tour tournament from Trump’s property in Miami to Mexico City. This could be the big joke on the PGA Tour for weeks to come.

Ireland’s pro golfer Rory McIlroy–who plays on the PGA Tour and recently slipped from #1 to #3 in world rankings–said of this change of venues, “It’s quite ironic that we’re going to Mexico after being at Doral. We just jump over the wall.”