News

PGA Tour vs. Ginn Resorts

January 31, 2009

The PGA Tour wasted no time suing Ginn Resorts, citing a breach of contract for withdrawing its sponsorship of the Champions Tour Ginn Championship. It's the tour's right, of course, but in doing so it seems to have forgotten that it was Ginn Resorts that bailed out the PGA Tour in 2007 by stepping in as a replacement for the Running Horse Championship.

The Running Horse Championship was to be part of the tour's Fall Series, but the Running Horse development in Fresno, Calif., went bankrupt before the course was finished and no title sponsor was ever found. In June of 2007, only four months before the tournament was scheduled to be played, Ginn Resorts stepped in with the Ginn sur Mer Classic at Tesoro.

It might not have been the tour's intention, but it seems that the speed with which it filed suit might serve as a shot across the bow of other financially-troubled sponsors who could have considered taking Ginn's lead.

-- John Strege