PGA Tour Moving Event from Miami's Trump Doral Resort to Mexico City

The PGA Tour is expected to officially announce Wednesday that its annual event at the Trump Doral Resort in Miami will move to Mexico City in 2017, according to Bob Harig of ESPN.com, citing a report from the Miami Herald on Tuesday. 

The WGC-Cadillac Championship was played at Doral in March, though Harig reported that "Cadillac did not renew its sponsorship of the World Golf Championship event and the PGA Tour had been in the process of trying to find a replacement."

“I believe they are sincere when they said they didn't want to leave an event with a 54-year history,” WGC-Cadillac Championship chairman Butch Buchholz told Barry Jackson and David J. Neal of the Miami Herald. “They've got an obligation to their board and they couldn't find a sponsor so they had to move. They don't have a choice. The PGA Tour didn't have a choice. If you don't have a sponsor what can you do?"

Resort owner and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was less understanding in his official statement on the decision, per the Golf Channel:

"

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 have been hosted in Miami for the last 55 years, to Mexico. No different than Nabisco, Carrier and so many other American companies, the PGA Tour has put profit ahead of thousands of American jobs, millions of dollars in revenue for local communities and charities and the enjoyment of hundreds of thousands of fans who make the tournament an annual tradition.

"

However, Trump's own words may have played a part in the event's inability to find a new sponsor. According to Jackson and Neal, the PGA said in December 2015 that it would “explore all options regarding the event’s future” after Trump proposed to ban Muslim immigrants from coming to the United States.

Buchholz said that he didn't know if those comments played a part in the inability to find a new sponsor for the event, though he did confirm that "Cadillac was going to leave" regardless of Trump's comments and that "the tour had almost a year to find a replacement" and was unable to do so.

Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, had a tongue-in-cheek response to the event being moved to Mexico City and Trump's previous comments regarding his plans to have Mexico build and pay for a wall on the United States and Mexican border.

"We just jump over the wall," he told Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The PGA Tour did pledge its commitment to Doral and Miami in January and had signed a 10-year contract extension through 2023, per Harig, but that agreement was contingent on having a sponsor in place. 

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