Giant Animatronic T-Rex Forces Australian PGA Championship To Relocate

Australia is a busy, unsettling place. It's not quite Fort Wayne (where else is, you know?), but there's still a lot going on there.

Take the Palmer Coolum Resort, the golf course at which Australia's PGA has long held its annual tournament. American golf courses, as we know, are starchy, preppy, filled with plaid and argyle and Jim Nantz. They're quiet, restrained places, even the nouveau-riche ones. But in Australia, that's not the case. To wit:

The new owner of the Palmer Coolum Resort has erected between the No. 9 green and 10th tee a 26-foot mechanical T-rex, which flips its tail and opens its mouth to unleash a menacing roar when anyone approaches. The owner, billionaire Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer, at least has agreed to turn it off during the tournament.

Oh, there's more:

Palmer wants to import more molded dinosaurs and turn the ocean resort into a theme park, or maybe a casino, but his plans have clashed with a tournament that dates to 1905. The owner already has put up more than 60 signs around the golf course to promote his interests, which includes his plan to build a replica of the Titanic.

Apparently Australian golfers are too much like their American counterparts: The tournament is pulling up its stakes and heading to Queensland next year, because of the resort owner's ostensibly poor taste. For shame, Australians. For shame.

Australian PGA final to switch venues [AP, via ESPN]