Senior Classic: Bucking Rain and Raining Bucks
As organizers prepare for Friday’s tee-off of the Toshiba Senior Classic golf tournament in Newport Beach, they’re facing a hurdle of their own making: trying to top the record $1 million raised last year for Orange County charities.
Their strategy: Pray for sunshine.
Last year’s tournament at the Newport Beach Country Club was the first senior tour event to clear more than $1 million, despite heavy downpours that rained out the final day of play.
Organizers hope to raise even more money this year if the weather holds and the crowds
materialize.
“Most people think when you get rained out, you save money. But you spend more,” said tournament director Jeff Purser. “You’ve got to get wood chips out to cover mud spots. You might have to get extra shuttle buses, because even though the crowds might be down, it’s unfair to ask them to stand in the rain and wait for the shuttle. And then you have the lost revenue.”
Purser said revenue from corporate sponsorships is slightly ahead of last year but so are costs, driven partly by a decision to improve comfort by adding heaters in hospitality tents and erecting a 3,000-square-foot shelter for the general public.
“Every year we try and do something a little better so we’re not a stagnant tournament,” Purser said.
The Toshiba Classic ranks high among Orange County sports-based fund-raising ventures.
The Anaheim Angels baseball team and Mighty Ducks hockey team together give about $2.5 million a year in grants to mostly Orange County organizations, money raised through season-long campaigns. And the annual Komen Orange County Race for the Cure last year raised $1.3 million for breast cancer research, up slightly from $1.2 million raised in 1999.
But the Toshiba Classic stands out as the most successful single spectator event and is also the biggest moneymaker on the senior tour, which last year raised $11.6 million for charities.
The PGA tour, by comparison, raised $49.6 million for charity last year, and its biggest single event was the GTE Byron Nelson tournament in Irving, Texas, in May, which raised $6 million.
The Difference: 1,200 Volunteers
Key to the Toshiba Classic’s success is its army of about 1,200 volunteers, who over the past several years have helped cut the tournament’s overhead and turn what once was a marginal fund-raising effort into a heavyweight.
Purser believes the marriage of golf and business has been good for nonprofits, with more than 80% of the proceeds from the three-day Toshiba tournament going to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.
“Corporations are willing to spend dollars because . . . they get something out of it,” Purser said. “There’s some great entertainment, and at the end of the day they know it benefits charity.”
Michael McPhillips, director of tournament business affairs for the Senior PGA Tour, said the underlying key to success lies in linking the events to local organizations.
“We’re not the rodeo or the circus coming to town where we’re there for 10 play dates and we’re gone,” McPhillips said. “We’re fortunate that because of our involvement in the community, we have a year-round presence.”
And the events carry a fantasy appeal for well-heeled golfers.
“You have the opportunity, which you don’t have at a lot other sporting events, where amateurs can have a bit of a fantasy golf experience by playing in the pro-am,” he said.
This year the price of two rounds of golf with a senior tour player is $5,550. Still, more than half of the $5.9-million overall budget--including $1.4 million in prizes--comes from Toshiba, the main corporate sponsor.
Women’s Heath Center Benefits
Most of the proceeds from this year’s tournament are earmarked for the planned Hoag Women’s Pavilion, a seven-story, 309,000-square-foot complex to be built adjacent to the existing hospital. Envisioned as a center for a wide range of women’s health services, it is scheduled to be completed in 2004.
“These kinds of funds give us the ability to do the extra things,” said Peter Foulke, Hoag’s executive vice president for corporate services. “This kind of community support allows us to provide the latest equipment and expand our programs.”
Last year, he said, the proceeds helped underwrite improvements in such areas as the cardiology department and the breast center in the women’s service sections. “It means a lot to us,” Foulke said.
Other charities expecting to receive some of the proceeds this year include Orangewood Children’s Foundation, the Southern California PGA Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, the Explorer Scouts of Orange County and the Toshiba Senior Classic Scholarship Fund.
Purser believes the tournament might be able to increase the take in future years but might also be near its upper limit.
Since there is less public interest in the senior tournaments than in PGA events, with celebrity golfers like Tiger Woods in the field, “this doesn’t turn into a $2-million event. It’s just not there,” Purser said. “Everyone has to look at their business realistically and set realistic goals, and $2 million is not a realistic goal.
“There aren’t a lot of events out there in the world that make a million bucks for charity. So if it were to cap out averaging somewhere around a million, that’s fantastic.”
* DIANE PUCIN: Doug Tewell will tee off as last year’s senior rookie of the year. D1
* MAP: The links, tournament facts. D13
