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Trump courting tours; the PGA's funny math
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This is the last week Donald Trump's posh Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach will likely see an LPGA event given the fact the ADT Championship has lost its title sponsor as well as a place on the 2009 LPGA schedule.
Trump, however, is optimistic that his course will play host to another professional event in the future.
"We were called recently by a number of tours," Trump told the Palm Beach Post. "and they all want to be here. That's the good news. The sad part is we took this event from nothing and made it a very big event. It's on NBC national television and it does very well."
Meanwhile, golf retailers in the West Palm Beach area aren't doing well. For example, Palm Beach Golf Center owner Larry Sugarman, who has stores in West Palm Beach and Boca Raton, told The New York Times that his business is slower than it's been in his 21 years in golf rich Palm Beach County.
"Before I first got into the business, someone told me that golf was recession proof,'' Sugarman told the Times' Larry Dorman. "And it was always true. Until now. Things are different.''
Different for Sugarman and other retailers, perhaps, but at PGA of America headquarters in Palm Beach Gardens, about a 10-minute ride from Sugarman's West Palm Beach store, PGA officials appear to still be living by the Joe Ely song, "The Road Goes On Forever And The Party Never Ends.''
New PGA of America Jim Remy, for example, has made the media rounds touting the success of Play Golf America, despite the fact it hasn't moved the participation needle in five years; and PGA Chief Executive Officer Joe Steranka was quoted by Gary Smits of the Jacksonville Times-Union this month that the average greens fee at public course in the U.S. is only $27.
Boss Joe didn't mention that at the PGA-managed golf club at Coyote Springs near Las Vegas, the greens fee currently is $175 for non-Nevada residents and $125 for Nevada residents. At the PGA Golf Club at Port St. Lucie, Fla., the greens fee currently is $55 on Monday-Thursday and $65 on weekends and holidays. After 2 p.m. the rates fall to $39 daily.
Let's do the math. Even taking the lowest rates into account, the PGA is charging an average of $82 per round on its golf courses. Guess it's a matter of "do as I say and not as I do.''
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