Jay Monahan. Picture by Chris Condon/PGA Tour
Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, United States: The PGA Tour and its tournaments generated more than US$180 million for charitable causes in 2017, surpassing the previous year’s record amount by approximately US$14 million.
This total includes donations made by tournaments on the PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions, Web.com Tour, Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latinoamérica and PGA Tour-China.
The announcement brings the all-time total generated for charity by the PGA Tour to US$2.65 billion. The Tour surpassed US$1 billion in 2005 and US$2 billion at the beginning of 2014.
PGA Tour Commissioner
Jay Monahan said: “The entire PGA Tour family takes tremendous pride in the positive impact that we continue to make each year through the millions of dollars that are raised for very deserving charitable organisations.
“As we often note, beyond the sheer dollar amount, the real story is in the hundreds of thousands of lives that benefit from these contributions every year. Thank you to all of the tournaments, players, sponsors, volunteers and fans who make all of this possible.”
In 2017, five PGA Tour events raised more than US$10 million for charity – the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Valero Texas Open, Dean & Deluca Invitational, the John Deere Classic and the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
In addition to those tournaments, the biennial Presidents Cup announced a record donation of more than US$10.7 million as a result of the 2017 event held at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The PGA Tour’s flagship event, The Players Championship, generated US$8.7 million in 2017, a large portion of which benefits local children’s charities as part of the tournament’s commitment to generate US$50 million for youth-related charities over 10 years. Since that commitment was made in April of 2011, US$45 million has been raised toward that goal.
Six PGA Tour Champions events generated more than US$1 million to charity in 2017, with the Shaw Charity Classic leading the way at more than US$6 million.
Three Web.com Tour events generated more than US$1 million, led by the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship at more than US$2.1 million.
Unlike other professional sports organisations, the PGA Tour relies on more than 100,000 volunteers annually to run its tournaments, and the vast majority of its tournaments are structured as non-profit organisations designed to donate 100 per cent of net proceeds to charity.
Community beneficiaries include a broad range of organisations such as hospitals and shelters, youth development programmes, food banks, groups that support the military and their families, organisations that support senior citizens, those that help abused women and children and growth-of-the-game initiatives.