"The WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship is leaving Tucson. What do the French say? Fait accompli? Yes, in any language, it is terminal here."
/That's the Arizona Daily Star's Greg Hansen on the prospects of the match play's return to Tucson after next year's event.
Wade Dunagan, the executive director of the last three Match Play events, will be the first to go. The PGA will appoint new leadership soon, and the tournament itself will follow, probably after the last putt drops in February 2012.
If it doesn't make it for another year, it will be a surprise, but pro golf is full of surprises. Who could have ever predicted that Tiger Woods would be eliminated at Dove Mountain by the likes of Thomas Bjorn, Nick O'Hern and Tim Clark?
At this stage, it's fluid. Anything goes.
This would be a good place to insert some perspective, some damage control, from Finchem and the tour, but he was not made available for comment in the days he spent at the Ritz-Carlton. You pick the appropriate term: This type of treatment for a city that has played host to the PGA Tour since 1945 is (a) insulting, (b) arrogant or (c) bad business.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Hansen was kind to not point out that Dove Mountain was a Finchem/Nicklaus vision that was doomed from the start because of its location and the always fatal awarding of a tournament to a course that hasn't been played yet.