LOS ANGELES (CNN) — Donald Trump’s golf enterprise is the latest casualty in the backlash over his controversial comments about Mexican immigrants.
Trump and the Professional Golfers Association “mutually agreed” to pull the PGA’s 2016 Grand Slam of Golf from Trump’s Los Angeles golf course, according to statements from both sides out Tuesday.
The cancellation comes after Univision, NBC and Macy’s severed ties with Trump after he called some Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “killers” in comments during and since his presidential campaign launch.
Trump has refused to apologize for his comments, instead doubling down and insisting that the Mexican government is sending the worst individuals in its society across the border and into the U.S.
Trump and PGA officials met on Monday to discuss the event and agreed to move the competition to a non-Trump-owned golf course to shield the PGA from any blowback.
“The parties mutually agreed that it is in the best interest of all not to conduct the 2015 PGA Grand Slam of Golf at Trump National — Los Angeles,” the PGA said in a statement.
The Trump Organization said in a statement that Trump “does not want his friends at the PGA of America to suffer any consequences or backlash with respect to the Grand Slam of Golf.”
Trump said in the statement that he has “great respect for the PGA of America and everything they stand for.”
He added that nixing the event will give him “the time to rebuild the golf course…into the course I always wanted it to be.”
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