PGA TOUR surpasses $100 million fundraising goal for inclusion-related initiatives

The goal was a lofty one, not unlike those a professional golfer sets for himself at the beginning of the season. Only this didn’t revolve around winning the FedExCup or a major championship or ascending to world No. 1.

In August of 2020, PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan announced a commitment from the TOUR and its tournaments to raise $100 million over the next decade to aid local nonprofits in their work to address the needs of those in underrepresented and underserved communities.

On Tuesday at the TOUR Championship – just three years later – Monahan was able to say that goal had already been met. More than $124 million has been raised, including over $82 million in the last year alone, for those inclusion-related initiatives.

To date, 360 new charitable partners have been identified and a total of 552 non-profits in communities where TOUR events are played have been impacted by the money raised. The TOUR’s total charitable footprint since its inception in 1955 is $3.64 billion.

“We are uniquely structured in sports to bring our tournaments and partners together to help organizations in driving these efforts,” Monahan wrote in the TOUR’s Community Impact Report. “I’m pleased to share that this collective focus has resulted in surpassing our $100 million goal in just three years, bolstering the work of nonprofit organizations that promote youth development, education, health and human services, community and economic growth and empowerment, and equity and social justice reform.”

Three years. Let that sink in.

Monahan’s pledge was made in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic that had forced the cancellation of the TOUR’s showcase event, THE PLAYERS Championship, along with nearly 30 percent of the season. Even the TOUR Championship where he made the ambitious announcement, was affected. It was played without fans, as was every event since competition returned in June 2020.

Two months after the TOUR shuttered competition, along with every other major sports league, a different kind of social reckoning eclipsed the nation. George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, was murdered during an arrest by a police officer kneeling on his neck as he repeatedly moaned that he could not breathe.

Floyd’s death set off a wave of protests across the country and galvanized what became known as the “Black Lives Matter” movement. It was in this climate that Monahan made the pledge, and the TOUR began its push to raise awareness of what could be accomplished with its tournament and charitable base.

Marsha Oliver, the TOUR’s Senior Vice President of Community and Public Engagement, admits to having some reservations when Monahan broached the idea with his executive team. After all, golf was segregated until Charlie Sifford broke the color barrier in 1961, and unlike the NFL and NBA, the TOUR’s members and its fans remained predominantly white.

Would the PGA TOUR really be missed if it didn’t take a stand? Is this something the TOUR should get involved in?

“And Jay said, ... we are going to be a part of it because it's the right thing to do,” recalled Oliver, who serves on the TOUR’s Inclusion Leadership Council, formed in 2014. “We have communities who have come to rely on us for hurricanes, natural disasters, tragedies. They can rely on the PGA TOUR for that. Then why can't they rely on the PGA TOUR for this?

“(He said) it was very clear that many communities across our nation were hurting. Just because we don't have a past that supports it, we darn well have a present, a future that does. So, let's lead and make our efforts and our commitment intentional.”

The key to the success of the project lay in the “unique” structure Monahan mentioned, those civic organizations and foundations that run the PGA TOUR events in their communities. So, the TOUR developed a toolkit that encouraged and facilitated outreach to charitable organizations that promote inclusion. Mindful of accountability, a system to track, collect and report the gains made was also created.

In some cases, the relationships already existed. Take, for example, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the primary beneficiary of the first FedExCup Playoffs event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The hospital is known worldwide for curing childhood cancer and serving families regardless of color or economic status. But was there more to the story?

“We had a conversation with them to say, are there specific programs, initiatives, efforts that you lead to serve marginalized groups?” Oliver said. “And what we discovered by asking the question is St. Jude is the only hospital in the world that is credited for curing sickle cell disease, which is a disease that disproportionately affects African American and minority populations.

“The very first grant that (founder) Danny Thomas received at St. Jude was for sickle cell. They have a blood disorder area that we hadn't known about that we then could direct dollars to be able to support and advance the work that they were leading for sickle cell patients, blood disorder patients, which goes with our DE&I priority and commitment to marginalized and underrepresented groups.”

Over the past three years, the TOUR and its tournaments also strengthened relationships with the HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in their areas. A prime example is in Jacksonville, Florida, in THE PLAYERS backyard where a $50,000 grant from the tournament helped resurrect the women’s golf program at Edward Waters University, the state’s oldest HBCU.

United Airlines, which is the official airline of the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions and Korn Ferry Tour, has also committed more than $1.5 million in grants to HBCU programs to fund travel to tournaments and for recruiting. The pledge of $10,000 per year to each school was announced at last year’s TOUR Championship and has already been extended through 2025.

Mesha Levister, who is the men’s and women’s golf coach at Prairie View A&M, once rode 11 hours in a van from Durham, North Carolina, where she was in school, to play in a tournament in Port St. Lucie, Florida. One of her players, Christian Latham, spent 15 hours in a bus driving from Houston to a tournament in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. That trip took two days, each way, which, when coupled with the tournament, meant nine days away from school.

The grant from United Airlines will have a significant impact on the Panthers’ golf program.

“It's saved us a tremendous amount of time and money just to be able to have access to go over to Houston Airport and to fly,” Levister said. “Just to reduce costs of travel helps tremendously because now we can use those funds to give them a better experience as a student athlete and a college golfer that we may not have been able to do before.”

The benefits of the $100 million pledge go beyond the golf course, though. The WM Phoenix Open and the Thunderbirds, who manage the tournament, have been involved with the Bonneville Education Foundation (BEF) and its Water Stewardship Program since 2015. In the last two years, that relationship has included DigDeep, and its work with members of the Navajo Nation, more than 30 percent of whom are water insecure.

DigDeep, with the support of the WM Phoenix Open, installs 1,200-gallon cisterns in the parched earth in the Arizona desert to deliver water to families in need in the Navajo Nation. At the same time, plumbing and a small hot water heater are installed inside the home, powered by solar panels.

Megan Merenda, who is the development director of DigDeep, remembers one of those jobs, in particular. The whole family watched intently, and the grandmother, whose name was Carol, told her she was wearing a special dress for the occasion. When the water was turned on for the first time, Carol offered the workers a drink.

“(She’s) like, does anybody need water? It's so hot out there. You've all been working so hard. And like her first thing was offering us water to drink,” Merenda said. “It totally made me cry.”

Among the relationships the TOUR has developed is with 100 Black Men of America, a national non-profit that focuses on mentorship to develop the next generation of leaders. There are 17 chapters in communities that host TOUR events, and the two organizations share a similar mission in terms of literacy, economic empowerment and health and wellness.

“They have mentoring programs, the same exact pillars that we have as priority ones for the TOUR, which made that relationship a very great marriage just by listening and learning more about what they do and how long they've been doing it across communities,” Oliver said.

In digesting Tuesday’s news, Oliver says it’s important to remember there are similar stories in every community the TOUR visits. The $124 million is something to be celebrated, but not an end to the TOUR’s commitment to this project.

“We do not spike the ball,” Oliver says. “We do not take the victory lap. We just acknowledge the fact that we have made a milestone and we are going to continue to do good. So, do we say this is an important part of our journey? Yes. Can we say that this is a chapter in the PGA TOUR story? Absolutely.

“But we by no means are done. And we can't wait to see where we'll be in 2030 with this ongoing effort and commitment.”