Donald Trump’s golf course in Los Angeles won’t host this year’s Grand Slam of Golf due to the controversy surrounding his recent negative remarks about Mexican immigrants.
The exhibition created to match up the sport’s four major championship winners is run by the PGA of America. This year’s event had been scheduled to be played at Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles, in October after being moved from Bermuda. A new host site hasn’t been determined.
Trump met with PGA of America officials on Monday and “mutually agreed that it is in everyone’s best interest” not to conduct the tournament at the billionaire real-estate developer and U.S. presidential candidate’s course, the Trump Organization said in a statement.
The PGA of America said on its website that is in the process of exploring options and will comment further at the appropriate time."
Trump said Mexicans bring drugs and crime into the U.S. while also calling immigrants from Mexico “rapists” during a June 16 speech announcing his presidential campaign. The Republican candidate said shortly afterward that he’s received “tremendous support” from those in the golf world, yet the PGA of America, U.S. PGA Tour, LPGA and U.S. Golf Association said last week in a joint statement that his remarks don’t reflect the views of those organizations.
Trump said Tuesday in a statement that he doesn’t want “his friends at the PGA of America to suffer any consequences or backlash with respect to the Grand Slam of Golf.”
The PGA of America will hold its 2022 PGA Championship at Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey, and its Senior PGA Championship in 2017 at Trump’s course in Potomac Falls, Virginia.
The PGA Tour holds the World Golf Championships Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral in Miami, while the LPGA Tour will play this year’s Women’s British Open at Trump Turnberry in Scotland. The USGA will hold the U.S. Women’s Open at at Trump’s Bedminster property in 2017.Trump has also been seeking to bring a major championship to the new course he operates in New York City.