Wynn GC, AKA The Desert Inn Golf Course, Soon NLE?

Nice spot by John Strege to catch the item in Norm Clarke's column indicating that developer Steve Wynn may take his Tom Fazio-designed Wynn Golf Club and turn it into a third hotel, joining the Wynn and Encore.

The course was constructed at great expense and pain on the site of the historic Desert Inn course, at the time only one of two to have hosted the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and Seniors/Champions/Valiant Competitors/PGA Tour Champions Tour. Now only Rancho Park has done so.

Anyway, Clarke's tip came from Sigfried Fischbacher, who revealed that Wynn is moving ahead with his demo plans.

While the golf world will certainly survive the loss of a Fazio design, it's still a historic spot with a superb 19th hole.

Trump Doral: "Next week is the equivalent of a date night with someone you’ve already served divorce papers on."

Susanne Crane and David Chen of the New York Times tried to brand Donald Trump a non-player in the city that openly declares itself the greatest in the world.

Poor Donald!

It's a strange "Special Report" attempting to belittle the Republican frontrunner and Nevada caucus winner. But the piece seems to backfire by reminding us that New Yorkers have a woefully inflated sense of civic importance that doesn't register past the George Washington Bridge.

The only thing missing was a paragraph about how The Donald wasn't able to secure decent Hamilton tickets. (Lucky man!)

More enjoyable is Eamon Lynch's suggestion in Newsweek that Trump has moved on from golf as only a frontrunner for the world's most powerful job can do.

While campaigning in South Carolina last week, Trump addressed a rally in Kiawah Island, the famed golf community. Speaking with his usual combination of incoherence and immodesty, he told the crowd that the developers of Kiawah had also built Doonbeg, the resort on Ireland’s west coast that Trump purchased two years ago.

“I bought it a number of years ago, and during the downturn in Ireland I made a good investment. It is an incredible place,” Trump said. “We spent a lot of money on making it just perfect, and now it’s doing great.” (Recently filed accounts showed a loss of $2.7 million in the first year of his ownership.)

It’s what Trump said next that matters.

“But I don’t care about that stuff anymore. It is like small potatoes, right? I’ll let my kids run it, have fun with it, let my executives have a good time, but I don’t care about it. I care about making America great again. That’s what I care about.”

Small potatoes. That’s us, he’s talking about. Golf.

While executives in the sport fretted about how best to break up with Trump, he’s pulled a George Costanza and broken up with them.

Lynch goes on to prepare us for next week's fun, where the PGA Tour visits Trump Doral under strained terms.

Forward Press: Goodbye West Coast, Hello Animal-Branded Golf!

Another wonderful West Coast Swing has ended--the best ever!--and now we move to Florida.

Get ready for our Bear Trap, Blue Monster and Snake Pit drinking games! My column here on the risks and rewards of cozying up to branded knicknames as your course identity.

I didn't know about it, but Golf.com launched a new live talk show today. You can check it out here.

R&A Preparing To Punt On A Trump Turnberry Decision?

Alistair Tait says R&A head honcho Martin Slumbers is meeting with media Monday and may be prepared to announce a 2020 Open Championship venue.

The name in the envelope is unlikely to be Trump Turnberry.

This is fun from Tait's report:

As reported previously in Golfweek, Trump acquired the mobile phone number of new R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers last year. Trump has made frequent calls to Slumbers to promote Turnberry’s 2020 credentials. The property tycoon is spending approximately $250 million to upgrade the course and hotel on Scotland's southwest coast.

Slumbers will sit down with golf writers Monday for a roundtable discussion on a number of issues. Trump, and his Turnberry course, likely will dominate the discussion.