DORAL, Fla. — The PGA Tour and its long relationship with the Doral Resort outside of Miami have come full circle, from a 54-year tenure that ended rather sadly a decade ago to a return under the same title sponsorship with an event as big or better than before when it was known as the WGC-Cadillac Championship.
This week it is simply the Cadillac Championship, a $20 million signature event that will have a field of 72 players and is similar to the old World Golf Championships model that the PGA Tour abandoned following the 2022 season.
There are 18 players in the field who played at Doral prior to the Tour’s departure after the 2016 event, including winners Adam Scott and Justin Rose.
But how we got here is a story itself and it involves the current President of the United States, a former commissioner of the PGA Tour and the title sponsor.
A focal point of the spring Tour calendar
Starting in 1962 when it was known as the Doral Country Club Open and won by Billy Casper, the Doral tournament was a staple on the spring PGA Tour calendar, often leading off the Florida Swing and viewed by many players as the start of the countdown to the Masters.
The event changed names over the years but was consistently won by some of the game’s best. Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf, Raymond Floyd, Hubert Green, Tom Kite, Lanny Wadkins, Ben Crenshaw, Greg Norman, Jim Furyk, Ernie Els and Tiger Woods were among the winners.
Woods had an epic duel with Phil Mickelson at Doral in 2005 that is still talked about today. Woods defended his title the next year, and then won it again in 2007 when the tournament switched to the WGC model and was known as the CA Championship.
Mickelson won in 2009, Els in 2012 and Woods in 2013, followed by Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson and Scott.
And then the run ended, somewhat controversially, because the then-presidential candidate was involved as he was and remains the owner of the resort now called Trump National Doral.
Cadillac’s deal to sponsor the then $10 million tournament expired following the 2016 event and the Tour had worked to secure an extension. Typically, those are completed before the contract is up, and when no announcement was forthcoming during the week of Scott’s victory, it became clear that the event’s future in Miami was in doubt.
The Tour said all the right things about trying to find a sponsor but there was an underlying sentiment that it might move on from Doral because of Donald Trump—even though at the time he was not even a favorite to win the Republican nomination.
A move from Miami to Mexico City, devoid of politics
Then, in June, the Tour announced that the event was moving to Mexico City and would be called the WGC-Mexico Championship. The Tour announced a seven-year deal with Grupo Salinas to host at a yet-to-be-named course and later was Chapultepec Golf Club (where LIV Golf has played the last two years).
“Some of the reaction revolves around the feeling that this is political exercise, and it is not that in any way, shape or form,” said then-PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem during a news conference at the Memorial Tournament, where he addressed the situation. “The decision here was based on the reality that we are not able to secure sponsorship for next year’s WGC at Doral or for years out for that matter.
“At the same time, we had an opportunity to build what we think is going to be a spectacular event in an area that is strategically important to the growth of the sport and the activity of the PGA Tour that has been focused in South America and Central America for the last good number of years.”
Trump, understandably, was not pleased. On the campaign trail that year he had made disparaging comments about Mexico and criminals that were coming to the U.S. and hurting the country, along with promising to build a wall to separate the country from the U.S. that Mexico would pay for.
Finchem had called Trump to tell him the news but learned that the owner would be discussing it on Fox News, thus hastening the decision to discuss the decision at the Memorial.
“I just heard that the PGA Tour is taking their tournament out of Miami and moving it to Mexico,” Trump said at the time. “It’s at Doral ... they used one of my places. They’re moving their tournament; it's the Cadillac World Golf Championship. And Cadillac’s been a great sponsor, but they’re moving it to Mexico.
“They’re moving it to Mexico City, which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance," Trump added, alluding to Mexico's reported battle against a nationwide surge in abductions in recent years.
In a statement released that day, Trump said: “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 has been hosted in Miami for the last 55 years, to Mexico.”
At the time, Rory McIlroy quipped: “It’s quite ironic that we're going to Mexico after being at Doral. We just jump over the wall.”
Trump bought the resort in 2012 and his company invested millions in upgrades. The Tour had a 10-year contract with the resort through 2023 but it was contingent upon finding title sponsorship when it expired after the 2016 tournament. Finchem said that the Tour simply ran out of time and hoped to come back with a different tournament.
Politics were often blamed but Finchem said it was more about the sponsorship issues—and that Trump’s command of the spotlight during his ownership overshadowed the sponsor.
“I know everybody’s talking about politics, but it’s actually not that, in my view,” Finchem said. "I think it’s more Donald Trump is a brand, a big brand, and when you’re asking a company to invest millions of dollars in branding a tournament and they’re going to share that brand with the host, it’s a difficult conversation.
“The difficulty there is more that and less the politics. The politics might have contributed some since he’s been running, but it’s more than that, and he knows that. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t make it work right now, but our focus is going to come back [Doral] with a solid property to make it work going forward.”
That never happened until now.
Before the PGA Tour returned, there was LIV Golf
In the meantime, the LIV Golf League emerged and scheduled four events at Doral starting in 2022 when it staged its Team Championship at the resort at the end of its first eight-tournament season.
Trump, then out of the White House, played in the pro-am and spoke to reporters afterward, still bitter about the PGA Tour’s departure and lauding LIV and its product and, without naming him, slammed then-PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Tour leadership.
“The Tour mishandled it so badly,” Trump said of its decision not to work with LIV but suspend players who participate in LIV Golf events. “The people at the top ... something should happen with them. They mishandled it so badly. They not only had an advantage, they are dealing with very good people with unlimited money. They’re good people with unlimited money. And something could have been worked out very easily.
“And the Tour decided to go, as Richard Nixon said, to stonewall it. That didn’t work out too well for them. As we said before, what they did is bad for golf. They could have had something so incredible. And now they’ve punched into the pension fund in order to lift up prize money. And the players are not happy with that, the pension fund. So it’s going to be very interesting.
“And by the way, a lot of other people are coming over. Big names. You know that. The star system is always very important in sports. Whether it’s sports or anything else. And they’ve got the stars.”
Trump was essentially asserting that the Tour was dipping into the player pension fund to pay for increased purses; the Tour said the increases were covered by sponsorship fees and reserves.
The LIV event was played in the spring in 2024 and 2025 the week prior to the Masters, and last year, Trump made a brief appearance on the eve of the tournament, having earlier in the year been involved in the failed negotiations to bring peace between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf via an agreement with the Public Investment Fund, which has yet to happen.
Despite all the rhetoric, the Tour decided to return to Doral this year, announcing a new tournament without a sponsor before Cadillac was eventually brought back on board as a signature event in a crowded schedule that will see another signature event at the Truist Championship prior to the PGA Championship.
“This year is a little bit of an exception I think. This is an added event,” said Scott, who is a member of the Tour’s policy board as well as the Future Competition Committee. “Ideally this wouldn't be the way. ... I think we've got to get through this year and hopefully the schedule looks a little more balanced next year.”
It is unclear why LIV Golf elected to abandon Doral unless it was pushed aside by the PGA Tour. LIV did not have a domestic event this year prior to the Masters, but has two scheduled at Trump courses, including next week’s tournament in Virginia. The President will also see one of his courses used for a DP World Tour event in Ireland.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as With Donald Trump, Doral and the Cadillac Championship, the PGA Tour Has Come Full Circle.
