Garry Smits| gsmits@jacksonville.com
The PGA Tour's billion-dollar increments in charity are coming faster all the time.
The Tour announced on Tuesday that last year's record amount of $203.4 in charitable giving pushed the all-time total past $3 billion. The milestone came six years after the Tour reached $2 billion in 2014 -- which was nine years after the first billion was recorded in 2005.
That first billion took 67 years from the first tournament recognized for having a charitable impact, the 1938 Palm Beach Invitational.
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“I’m laying 4-to-5 that the next billion will take three-and-a-half years,” said former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman, whose restructuring of the Tour and its events led to the bulk of the charitable money raised.
The Palm Beach event raised $10,000 for charity. Last year's Players Championship contributed a record $9.25 million to the annual amount, and The Players has reached nearly $110 million since 1974.
"It's truly a pleasure to thank our fans, sponsors, tournaments, players and volunteers for helping us generate over $3 billion for charity and positively impact millions of lives," PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. "Together we look forward to continuing to reach and celebrate millions more."
The first donation made by Players Championship Charities of the new year will be a $100,000 grant to the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition, which leads a cooperative community effort to reduce infant mortality and improve the health of children, childbearing women and their families.
A recent report commissioned by the Coalition revealed that 147 babies on the First Coast died before they were a year old and that the area's infant mortality rate increased in 2018 to 7.9 deaths per 1,000 live births, the highest rate in a decade.
With the grant, the Coalition will expand health services to women in the Arlington area and provide newborn home visitation services to women served by the Magnolia East satellite clinic and area hospitals.
"We are very excited about the critical work we will now be able to advance, thanks to the generous support of The Players," said Faye Johnson, CEO of the Healthy Start Coalition, in a statement. "Through this grant we will be able to address gaps in service and provide our families with information, support and education that will help our area's babies to celebrate their first birthdays."
The charity money is raised by staging more than 100 tournaments annually on the PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions and the Korn Ferry Tour. All of the tournaments are 501 (c) (3) charities, a concept Beman launched in the 1970s.
All tournaments are dependent on volunteers to perform tasks such as parking, crowd control, player services, construction, roping the golf course and admissions, which means the individual tournaments don't have to hire outside contractors.
The money saved, plus sponsor and fan donations, player charities and foundations and programs such as The Players Championship's Birdies for Charity and Chip in for Youth and the RSM Classic's Birdies Fore Love adds up -- and has increased almost every year.
The $203.4 million raised last year is a bump of more than $13 million.
Beman said the players deserve a large portion of the credit. Many have started their own foundations and sponsor their own charity events.
“I think the players are the real unsung heroes,” Beman said. “As a group they have established a culture of giving and I bet the amount of money they have raised on their own and through playing in each other’s events comes close to matching what the Tour’s events do.
The Players has assisted more than 300 charities on the First Coast since moving to Ponte Vedra Beach in 1977. Primary consideration is given to organizations that serve education, youth, character development, wellness, sports and the military.
“It’s been the very definition of a win-win situation,” Beman said of moving The Players and the PGA Tour headquarters to Jacksonville. This community helped us and we’ve been able to help the community.”
