After oh-so-many years at Long Point and Deerwood, the Gator Bowl Pro-Am is moving. This year’s tournament will be at San Jose and the TPC Stadium Course.

Maybe it was time for a change though few events have had the continuing success that Chairman Henry Tuten has given this one. He has run it with a firm hand and the big and strong fields return the favor.

The move started when Long Point, part of the bankrupt Amelia Island Plantation company, opted out. Deerwood, which has membership troubles of its own (don’t we all!) and had just lost its golf-nutty general manager to San Jose, didn’t seem to mind.

Tuten shopped around and ended up with a good mix: a private equity club and the area’s best-known course. Should attract a top and full field for the annual week-before-Christmas dates.

Probably a win-win all around.

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Could the University of Florida’s golf team turn out to be the area’s THIRD best next year? You noted that Florida State almost won the NCAA Championships and that UNF performed well in the finals, and has almost everyone returning.

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Don’t get your neck in a knot about rumors of the World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony going to New York City.

The PGA Tour leaders desperately want some sort of big splash in the nation’s biggest media center. Always have, dating back to the Tour’s founding, and always will. But golf isn’t a game played in a stadium and that’s all they have up there.

Frankly, having the Hall of Fame in the Big Apple will be a dud. If it were such a great idea, wouldn’t baseball, basketball or football already have tried it? Instead of staying in Cooperstown, Springfield or Akron?

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Ponte Vedra resident Bud Cauley didn’t get the Ben Hogan Award as the top college player. That went to Washington’s Nick Taylor and Cauley was one of the two losing finalists.

Despite having a very good year, Cauley has now decided to wait another year to turn pro and he’ll be back at the U. of Alabama.

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Jacksonville product Riley Skinner is doing all the right things with the New York Giants so bet on him to stick with the team. He’s an undrafted free agent, which usually makes it difficult, but he’s become best pals with first-team Eli Manning and also was a hit in the team’s annual charity golf tournament.

Do not bet against Skinner. If you’ll remember, he went to wake Forest as a real student and emerged as one of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s best quarterbacks because injuries took out the others. If he gets a real chance, he may end up giving us two starters in the NFL (yes, this assumes that Tim Tebow does the job at Denver.)

Skinner’s a good golfer and his team won the charity event. The week before, he shot 77 at Timuquana despite breaking his driver.

— Fred Seely is editor of ww.golfnewsjax.com.