The PGA has pulled its longtime tour event from Miami’s Trump Doral resort — its home for more than 50 years — and moved it to Mexico City next year. Oh, the irony.
The PGA Tour announced Wednesday the new event will be called the WGC-Mexico Championship and will take place March 2-5, 2017, at a yet-to-be-determined site. Resort owner Donald Trump — the Republican presidential candidate who has made a litany of controversial comments about Mexicans — responded by saying he hopes they have “kidnapping insurance.”
The Tour inked a 10-year deal with Trump National Doral back in 2013, contingent upon title sponsorship. With sponsor Cadillac gone, so is the deal. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem insisted Trump’s controversial politics are not the primary reason, though he did admit it may have played a role.
“One of the difficulties with sponsorship here — I know everybody’s talking about politics, but it’s actually not that in my view — I think it’s more Donald Trump is a brand, a big brand, and when you’re asking a company to invest millions of dollars in branding a tournament and they’re going to share that brand with the host, it’s a difficult conversation,” Finchem said at a press conference. “It’s a struggle to get a customer to spend those kind of dollars and share the billing. It’s actually the difficulty is more that and less the politics.
“The politics might’ve contributed some since he’s been running, but it’s more that. And he knows that. But it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t make it work right now.”
The PGA Tour event had been at Trump Doral since 1962, and the presidential candidate has spent millions refurbishing the resort since taking it over in 2012.
The Tour has a seven-year deal through 2023 to run the event with Group Salinas, a Mexico City-based collection of companies involved in retail, television and telecommunications.
Trump has angered many Latinos with his comments, including referring to Latino immigrants as murderers and rapists and suggesting the Mexican government intentionally is sending criminals to the US. He even took a swipe at fellow Republican Jeb Bush because of Bush’s Mexican-born wife.
Trump predictably did not hold his tongue on the move, making a joke about Mexico’s reputation for kidnapping.
“I just heard that the PGA Tour is taking their tournament out of Miami and moving it to Mexico,” Trump said Tuesday on FOX News. “It’s at Doral. … They used one of my places. They’re moving their tournament. It’s the Cadillac World Golf Championship, and Cadillac’s been a great sponsor, but they’re moving it to Mexico. They’re moving it to Mexico City, which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance.
“But they’re moving it to Mexico City, and I’m saying, ‘You know, what’s going on here?’ It is so sad when you look at what’s going on with our country.”
Trump followed with a statement Wednesday after the Tour’s official announcement.
“It is a sad day for Miami, the United States and the game of golf, to have the PGA Tour consider moving the World Golf Championships, which has been hosted in Miami for the last 55 years, to Mexico,” Trump said.
Just this week, soccer star Alan Pulido, who plays for Greek power Olympiakos, was abducted at gunpoint in Mexico.