Running out of headlines for Running Horse
The drama that is the saga of Running Horse golf course keeps on chugging along. In April, it was reported the course and its PGA Tour tournament were in trouble. Then, golf course architect Donald Trump thankfully stepped into the picture to really give us something to talk about.
Well, it’s a week since the Donald stopped by and he still wants to do a deal. (Without the Donald’s hyperbole, this would be rather boring.)
Trump in his phone interview said “everything is going to hell” at Running Horse, calling it a “wasting asset” in several ways.
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Construction “has to get started immediately or you won’t have a PGA Tour [event] for years to come,” Trump said.
Looming over it all — over Trump’s vision for a project he says can be a “spectacular success,” over Autry’s desire for a project that spurs development in a long-neglected neighborhood, over the landowners’ right to a fair price for their property — is the Running Horse bankruptcy.
I hate it when everything goes to hell. But the Donald wasn’t kidding and he’s not the only one who is playing the hyperbole card.
A PGA Tour official Friday declined to comment on the status of a tournament planned for October, one day after Fresno City Manager Andy Souza told the City Council the event will not be played.
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Souza sounded optimistic the event will be in Fresno in 2008 and beyond. Souza called Fresno “the last viable location for the PGA that has gone untapped. … Everything we have been told is it won’t be in Fresno in 2007, but it will be here in 2008.”
The last viable, untapped location? Fresno?
Steve Geil, chief executive of the Economic Development Corp. serving Fresno County and a leader in the effort to raise the purse money, said Friday a one-year delay may be a blessing.
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“It would’ve been a disaster to put on an annual event in only five months,” Geil said.
Geil said community leaders want Fresno and the PGA Tour to have a solid, long-term relationship. He said the big challenge isn’t funding the purse, but getting a Tour-qualified course built by next year.
These guys need to get with Team Tiger for the short term planning lesson. And apparently the problem isn’t the fact they can’t find anybody to pony up $2.4 million more dollars to fully fund the purse - it’s finding a course to play on in the last viable, untapped location for the PGA Tour.
