PGA Tour of Australia CEO Brian Thorburn has revealed "how close the Australian PGA came to being cancelled after a spat with the Palmer Group," according to Brent Read of THE AUSTRALIAN. Thorburn revealed that he received an email from the Palmer Coolum Resort "only days before the event threatening to withdraw its agreement to host the tournament." For close to two hours, the tournament's future was "in jeopardy as the parties thrashed out their differences." In the end, they "settled the dispute and the PGA went ahead as planned." Thorburn said, "It was an extremely robust exchange with one of those letters threatening repudiation of our agreement. I think within two hours we had kissed and made up. We considered all of our alternatives. Something like that happening three or four days before the tournament doesn't give you many options." Thorburn also revealed how unhappy both the PGA Tour and its sponsors were with the resort's decision to "plaster the fairways in signage promoting Clive Palmer's businesses." Thorburn said, "We were not happy with the signs. We heard about them beforehand. We notified the resort beforehand that we were not happy and that it put us in a breach of some of our sponsorship contracts. Some of our sponsors were given exclusivity and they were extremely unhappy" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 12/17).
