What everyone knew about the future of the Buick Open now has been made official: both the PGA Tour and Buick have mutually agreed to end their relationship. A replacement apparently will be named Wednesday.
Michigan estimates that local business will take a $10 t0 $20 million hit on this one.
And that leads me to wonder yet again why the State’s tourism bureau and the state government wouldn’t step in to provide at least a major part of the funding for the Buick. Investing $10 to save another $10—not including all of the unmeasurable positive externalities makes sense to me.
The Michigan Open Presented By Pure Michigan would have been a great event. They could even have moved it around a bit, hitting different parts of the state.
Oh well. The Buick just joins a long list of Michigan Professional tournaments that no longer exist, including the Ford Senior Open, the Champions Tour’s Farmer’s Charity Classic, the Treetops Par 3 pro Shootout, the Futures Tour Ann Arbor Classic, and the Canadian Tour’s Bay Mills Open (played in Michigan)—and likely a couple of others I’ve forgotten about.
Now, nothing.
