Deere & Company celebrates 25th year as title sponsor of John Deere Classic

SILVIS, Illinois — The John Deere Classic returns this week for its 25th year under the Deere & Company banner, a seamless run that makes the homegrown Fortune 100 company the second oldest title sponsor currently on the PGA TOUR.

Over the past quarter century, the tournament contested in one of the smallest markets on TOUR has hosted the coming-out parties of future major champions Bryson DeChambeau, Brian Harman and Jordan Spieth, helped Deere’s golf and sports turf division grow into one of the most successful and well-respected brands in the industry, and, perhaps most significantly, raised in excess of $170 million in charity dollars for hundreds of non-profit organizations across a two-state region.

The 2024 John Deere Classic will be the first under a three-year extension signed last July, the fifth multi-year extension of Deere’s sponsorship since 1999. That continues a remarkable run of welcome stability for a 54-year-old event that spent the first half of its existence fighting to stay afloat.

“It’s incredible,” said Mara Downing, Deere’s vice president of Global Brand and Communications and president of the John Deere Foundation. “We couldn’t be more thrilled with the impact the event has. We’re excited for a big week and laying a strong foundation to build on over the course of our new contract.”

Deere was the targeted sponsorship partner of a determined corps of volunteers since the first Quad City Open debuted in 1971. Yet, the agricultural, construction and forest equipment manufacturing company first established in Moline in 1848 cautiously deferred for years out of concern the tournament might not survive on a PGA TOUR that rapidly was emerging as American sports’ fifth major league.

“We’d been asked year after year after year to sponsor the tournament, and we would be a lead contributor. We’d put money into it," Mike Plunkett, Deere’s executive vice president of Corporate Communications in the 1990s, said in a 2021 history published around the John Deere Classic's 50th anniversary. "But we wouldn’t be the lead sponsor and the reason for that was there no business case for it. Because if we ever decided it was no longer feasible for us to do it, we’d be the bad guys in town."

The business case famously was made in 1996 when the PGA TOUR's Senior Vice President for Tournament Business Affairs Duke Butler proposed building a TPC course in the Quad Cities and making Deere the Official Golf and Turf Equipment Supplier to the PGA TOUR.

Once in, Deere & Company was all-in, and it has remained so now for a quarter of a century.

The first John Deere Classic took place in 1999 at Oakwood Country Club, a Pete Dye-designed course in Coal Valley, Illinois, which had hosted 24 previous Quad City events. TPC Deere Run came online a year later, after being built with Deere equipment on 400 acres of pristine woodlands that previously had served as an Arabian horse farm owned by the great-great-granddaughter of John Deere himself.

Over each ensuing tournament, the golf course has served as a lush, green, sprawling and globally televised billboard for the Deere & Company brand.

From signage written with the company’s signature font in colors true to the official corporate palate, to tee markers hand-built as replicas of Deere and Company equipment, to a one-ton driver head and a built-to-scale Ping Anser putter head attached to Deere excavators, innovative ideas annually promote John Deere green across TPC Deere Run.

“They’re involvement gets bigger and better every year, the ideas, the collaboration,” said John Deere Classic Tournament Director Andrew Lehman. “There is no mistaking when you are out here where you are and who the title sponsor is.”

Deere’s status as the exclusive provider of equipment to the TOUR and its TPC network has helped the golf and sports turf division significantly expand its global footprint, Downing said. Yet, Deere also has enlisted the John Deere Classic and its network television exposure to grow and enhance its numerous other equipment lines and subsidiary brands.

Beyond its contractual title sponsor investment, meanwhile, Deere funds the charter jet that flies contestants to the following week’s Genesis Scottish Open, and it significantly supports the bonus pool that has built the tournament’s iconic Birdies for Charity fundraising operation into a $171 million boost-in-the-bank for more than 500 regional non-profit agencies.

Last year, Deere and the tournament introduced the Concerts on the Course series featuring Darius Rucker and Blake Shelton in post-round weekend shows that helped draw the largest crowds in years to TPC Deere Run. This year, fans will be treated to shows by iconic rockers Counting Crows and rising country star Lainey Wilson.

Couple those draws with a field that includes Patrick Cantlay, defending champion Sepp Straka, Jason Day, Sungjae Im and, for the first time since winning his second John Deere Classic trophy in 2015, Jordan Spieth, and another huge week is expected.

“Last year, we heard players say, ‘Wow, you had more people here than some of the (Signature Events),’” Deere’s Downing said. “We’re just proud to provide an incredible experience for our community.”

That community extends beyond the Quad Cities. For a quarter century, Deere has enlisted the John Deere Classic to entertain clients from across the globe. Whether through dinners and programs at corporate headquarters, tours of local factories, opportunities to participate in Monday and Wednesday pro-ams at Deere Run or Saturday events at local clubs, or the simple enjoyment of food, fellowship, golf and music in the Deere-sponsored luxury suites, the company makes certain John Deere dealers and clients feel welcome and appreciated.

“This year, we have doubled the number of guests arriving for the weekend experience,” Downing said. “Every pro-am is full with a waiting list. We are excited for a great week ahead.”