Trump the bogey man of the game of golf

26 February 2016 - 09:17 By JAMES CORRIGAN

There was a time when the game of golf would head to Doral in Florida in fear of the course, aka the Blue Monster. Not this year. It is the Hullaballoo Monster - aka Donald Trump - causing all the trepidation.Will Trump, as Doral's owner, turn up at the WGC Cadillac Championship next week?If he does then Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Co may as well don curly wigs, red noses and big bow ties because it will become an utter circus. In short, one of the sport's biggest tournaments will be turned into nothing more than the latest staging point on Trump's election trail.Never mind all the extra publicity, the PGA Tour would far rather the billionaire stay away. Last December, after his declaration that Muslims should be banned from entering the US, the Tour announced it would be reviewing its future association with Trump and Doral immediately after the conclusion of this World Golf Championship.In response, Trump made a thinly veiled threat to sue, pointing out there was a 10-year contract in place.Trump is bound to go much, much further if he does rise to his pulpit at Doral, because if the last few months have told us anything it is that he much prefers to bite his rivals than he does his tongue.As the Newsweek writer Eamon Lynch put it: "For the PGA Tour, next week is the equivalent of a date night with someone you've already served divorce papers on."But maybe there is some hope for the PGA Tour. When talking about his extensive golf portfolio last week, Trump said: "I don't care about that stuff any more. It is like small potatoes, right? I'll let my kids run it, have fun with it. I don't care about it. I care about making America great again."It is perhaps as much as the game could possibly hope - he has bigger fish to fry. The world's loss could just turn out to be golf's huge gain.- ©The Daily Telegraph..

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