Last Year For The Grand Slam of Golf in Hawaii

Although an official anouncement apparently is not coming for three more weeks, a number of sources are reporting that this will be the last year the Grand Slam of Golf event will be played in Hawaii.

“Similar to the PGA’s other major events — the PGA Championship, the Senior PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup — we’ve decided to take it on the road and let spectators from different parts of the country experience the toughest tournament to qualify for,” said Julius Mason, senior director of communications and media relations for the PGA of America.

That’s the official word, but I’ve got another idea. I’ll bet it’s enormously expensive to run a television production from Hawaii, and they’d liek to cut costs. And I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out that someone has offered them a lot more money for the right to host the tournament.

One location that’s being talked about is Las Vegas. Considerin the amount of money the casinos are willing to pay the likes of Wayne Newton and Celine Dion in the name of entertainment, I’d think that having the four major winners show up for a few days would be worth a lot.

The big downside I can see is that a shift in time zones would keep them from showing it live in primetime.