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Pro golf - sports No. 1 giver

By Roy Waters | The News Herald

Published: August 11, 2009

In professional sports, there's nothing like the game of golf for giving back and this season, the PGA (Professional Golf Association) reached quite a milestone.
In the past 15 years, it has donated more than $1 billion to charity. With very few exceptions, all the money that's made by tournaments is given to a very worth cause.
Two well known hospitals, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. and the Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando, Fla., receive a huge amount of their budget from a single PGA tournament in each of those cities. Many other tour events generate millions of dollars for area charities from a single, four-day tournament. In addition, there are a number of one day pro-ams that raise a lot of funding for worthwhile local causes.
Most of the tour players try to fly back home on Sunday evening from that week's event, yet there are many Monday outings where some of them will play with local amateurs to help support a regional or national charity.
Ernie Els has an autistic son and recently held a one-day event that raised more than $700,000 for that worthy cause.
Other pro sports may put on charitable events that I know nothing of, but I dare say the four major ones together don't come close to matching pro golf's contributions. An individual may be active in helping some worthy cause but the owners and players as a whole are an all-together different animal.
Most professional team owners are very wealthy and have little incentive to operate for profit. They pay the players an obscene amount of money and charge their fans a like amount to attend their games. A box seat for one game can cost you $2,000 at Yankee Stadium.
Hundreds of professional players make more than $1 million a year. This is secured by contract and is paid even if the player has a terrible year or suffers an injury.
Pro golfers have no contract except for endorsements and only recently have a large number of them started winning $1 million a year. Out of that, they have travel, entry fees, caddies and other expenses to pay on their own.
What will happen to the pro tournaments sponsored by General Motors and Chrysler, not to mention those of large banks? With a president and Congress acting like its terrible for any company to waste their money on golf, I've not heard a single outcry of the millions the pro teams and TV make in advertising each season.
There's more money spent on the Super Bowl, the World Series and the NBA Finals, than a whole season of golf. Yet, golf outgives them all in charitable contributions. Go figure.
Former Wake Forest University golfer Jim Simons, the last amateur to lead the U.S. Open after 54-holes, was found dead recently in his Florida home. He was 55.
Don't look for the Wachovia Championship at Charlotte's Quail Hollow Golf Club to fold even if the bank can no longer sponsor it. The club has its sights on the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup.
A bit of golf trivia. Tiger Woods is ranked No. 1 in the world with Phil Mickelson No. 2. Can you believe England's Paul Casey is No. 3?

Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-66, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.