Casino news from http://www.pressconnects.com/
I had no recorded objection whatsoever to being born on an Indian reservation, in a Salamanca hospital no more than a mile from this new century's glittering Seneca Allegany Casino. Priorities change. Salamanca no longer has a hospital.
On the other hand, I will thoroughly disapprove if the PGA Tour gives birth to a regularly scheduled event on the Oneida Nation's Turning Stone Resort and Casino property. Professional sports events and gambling venues are ill-advised bedfellows, in my thinking.
The Turning Stone management was a truly good Samaritan last month in providing the final B.C. Open a marvelous golf course when flood damage made En-Joie unplayable.
The gesture was not without a self-serving nature, a foot in the door.
Ever since building its magnificent array of golf courses, the casino's proprietors had been angling for the national exposure of a PGA Tour event, encouraged no little by the fragile funding future in Endicott.
Ray Halbritter, CEO of Oneida Nation Enterprises, while accommodating Alex Alexander and Mike Norman in every way, was also quoted during last month's tournament week, "Luck is preparation waiting for opportunity."
Now PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and his policy board are considering the Turning Stone bid to host a $5 million event as early as 13 months from now.
Don't do it, Tim. Gamblers fixed a World Series and college basketball's point-shaving scandals. If any player from John Daly to Little Lord Fauntleroy blows first-place prize at Turning Stone by allegedly nonchalanting a 3-foot putt on the 72nd hole, don't think that tongues will wag more widely than had it occurred at Endicott or Augusta.
There was one hitch in determining the July tournament's official name, "The B.C. Open presented by Turning Stone Resort." Not, the PGA Tour officials, "... presented by Turning Stone Resort and Casino." Resort is lovely word; casino best left out. Out of sight, out of Finchem's mind? By chance, Atunyote Golf Club layout is some 2 1/2 miles from the roulette wheels, dice games, and 32 tables of 24-hour poker. It became Oneida Nation property a few years back and while recognizing this not being the occasion to make waves, Halbritter's associates objected strongly when state workers arrived to make the safety inspection of tournament tents, a routine requirement elsewhere.
Granted, the PGA Tour has played in Las Vegas for years, today's Michelin-sponsored event played exclusively on two Tournament Players Club courses. But until 2001, the now-abandoned Desert Inn course on the Strip was used in early rounds. In the course's 1953 tourney debut, winner Al Besselink's prize was wheelbarrowed to the 18th-green ceremony toting 10,000 silver dollars. And legend is that "Big Bessie" lost it all in the casino before the night was over.
The Dodgers' Triple-A franchise is in Las Vegas. Cashman (hmmm, those two syllables!) Field is owned by the Convention and Visitors Authority. Despicable, in my mind, is that while every other WNBA team remains in an NBA city, the lure of rabid UConn basketball fans' attendance convinced the league to permit sale of the Orlando franchise to the Mohegan Sun Resort Casino in Uncasville, Conn. The Suns, current league-leaders, play their home games on a 10,000-seat court smack dab in the middle of the casino come-ons.
Priorities change, of course. Salamanca no longer has a hospital.
|
|
