GREG McLAUGHLIN: Welcome, everyone. I would like to begin by welcoming everyone to our 13th National Golf Day. We're happy that you're joining us today, albeit virtually. I was in the nation's capital last week with our golf industry lobbying group and Washington, D.C. seems to slowly but surely be coming back to normal. So we look forward to being in person with everyone for National Golf Day in 2022.
We know you're busy, so thanks for taking the time to come together collectively to discuss the business of our sport and how we align ourselves really around important issues for the future of the game of golf.
I wanted to begin by recognizing and thanking our executive round table for their unwavering support of WE ARE GOLF. You'll recognize many companies that have been supporting WE ARE GOLF literally dating back since 2008, so thank them all for the support that they have been giving us over these many, many years.
Before we dive into the agenda, I wanted to comment on a few historic and unprecedented times that we're in and 2020 was certainly unlike anything that we could have seen or even imagined and I'm really proud of how our sport came together through the pandemic and thankful to have the opportunity to really introduce and reunite so many people to the game of golf.
As we Americans looked for respite throughout the pandemic, golf really became a great outlet for many. More than 500 million rounds of golf were played last year, which was an increase of 14 percent. And although these numbers are encouraging, indicating a positive momentum for our sport, our industry was still adversely impacted in many ways, and all of you were impacted equally as much. But collectively you all played a vital part in keeping our industry functioning.
The rollout of our Back2Golf operational guidelines allowed golf to operate in a responsible and safe manner allowing us to stay open and ultimately resulting in these increases to the increases in the rounds of golf. So congratulations to you all, really, for the success that you played in that part.
To begin today's program, a couple of housekeeping items for everyone. We are recording our general session and it will be posted on our WE ARE GOLF website equally as well concluding this session.
And our panelists will be taking questions from the more than 300 people on our Zoom call today. So if you would like a question, please put it in the chat and we'll stop and answer throughout each of the panel discussions.
So with that, I would like to now introduce our chairman of our leadership committee, Rhett Evans, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America to begin our program.
Rhett?
RHETT EVANS: Well, thanks, Greg, and good afternoon everyone. It's good to be with you, and like Greg said, I wish we were in person doing this. No life is or can be self-existent. We depend upon each other. That is a quote that every day that I get to come to work is embedded in my mind as it is etched in our lobby. And our founding father in 1926, Colonel Morley, those were the words that he spoke at the commencement of our association and I think he had the foresight to see that this industry can't exist without working together and that we can't be self-existent, and thus, the reason why this is our 13th year of bringing everybody together in a manner that we can depend upon each other. We can bring our experiences, our knowledge, and certainly our voice to something that is needed.
The vast majority of us on this webinar here today get to work in a wonderful industry around a sport that simply changes people's lives for the better, that contributes to their quality of life. It's an industry that adds over 84 billion dollars to the U.S. economy. It's an industry that provides a platform for over four billion dollars in charity to be raised for those causes that are so needed. It's an industry that employs over two million jobs and people across the United States. It's an industry that affords opportunities for over 15,000 diverse businesses. It provides over two million acres of needed green space in our communities. It's proactively -- it's an industry that proactively manages and is making the environment better and more sustainable. It's an industry that has a proven health, recreational, and wellness benefits. And, lastly, it's an industry whose overall participation base in the U.S. combining on and off golf course players has increased 8 percent during a global pandemic to now 36.9 million people.
We have a compelling story to tell and one that must be told over and over again. In fact, it's imperative. It's even critical that lawmakers who have an effect both positively and negatively on our industry be informed, that they have a contact, a resource, to better equip them in making sound decisions.
As we all know, there's been substantial policy as well as personnel changes in Washington DC. Following the 2020 elections in November, Democrats now control the Senate and the House of Representatives and hold the Presidency. We have six new Senators and 60 new members of the house. Along with these 66 new members of Congress, there are an additional 449 members of need to hear our message. We need their help and they need ours.
Again, no life is or can be self-existent. We depend upon each other. Our primary focuses for this National Golf Day in 2021 will be focused on the golf properties and the environmental stewardship that is being employed across the United States as we have implemented BMP's or best management practices in all 50 states.
Secondly, we'll be talking about the increased participation in golf and promoting its health benefits through the FIT Act.
And, lastly, we'll be talking about golf as a business that affects many communities across America and the current labor issues that we're struggling with, whether it's dealing with the H-2B Visa program and other significant challenges that our industry is facing around labor.
As National Golf Day attendees, you'll have two opportunities to learn about these primary areas that will be covered during our Congressional meetings on Wednesday. An issues training webinar took place on May 3rd. It was recorded and can now be watched. There will also be another training tomorrow on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Eastern, the day before National Golf Day.
To conclude, I want to leave you with a quote from Martin Luther King, who said: No or -- our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. Collectively, we are making a difference, and we can continue to make a difference for our great sport. This is my 12th National Golf Day and I'm always amazed at the activity and the amount of effort that people put in to be able to make their voice heard, and I want to thank you personally for not being silent about the things that matter. I want to thank you for your financial support, for your time, and, again, for lending your voice so that we can contribute and continue to add to the great story line golf provides to the millions of people every day across America.
It's now my privilege to turn the screen over to Jane Fader, vice president of communications for the World Golf Foundation, to lead our diversity, equity, and inclusion industry roundtable.
Jane.
JANE FADER: Thank you, Rhett. It is great to be with all of you today. It is my sincere privilege to facilitate this next discussion. I have worked for the First Tee for more than 10 years now and over the last few years have had the opportunity to get more involved in WE ARE GOLF. This topic of diversity, equity, inclusion is near and dear to my heart, and I am so encouraged and proud of the work that is under way.
So with that said, let me introduce to you our panel. And as a reminder, I know Greg mentioned it up front, but we are going to try to get to some questions at the end of this session. So if you do have questions, feel free to type it right into the chat to all panelists or all panelists and attendees. We want to make it as interactive as possible. It's hard not being in person for it.
So, first and foremost, I would like to introduce Sandy Cross. Sandy has been with the PGA of America for 25 years. In 2014 she spearheaded the launch of the inclusion and diversity department and strategic plan.
In 2019 she was promoted to Chief People Officer, the position she currently holds, and she oversees both the people team and DE&I. She has worked diligently to embed diversity, equity, inclusion across all lines of the PGA of America's business.
Sandy, welcome, and thank you for being here.
SANDY CROSS: Thank you, Jane. It's great to be here.
JANE FADER: Laura Diaz began her career at the Puerto Rico Golf Association. She spent a collective of seven years working for the First Tee in a variety of roles, including leading events that had direct interactions with participants from all backgrounds in every corner of this country.
In 2019 she became the director of operations for the LPGA foundation, and in that role she continues to oversee the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf Program, among other initiatives to grow and diversify the game. Laura also serves as the Chair of the LPGA's DE&I Task Force. Laura, it is always great to see you, my friend.
LAURA DIAZ: Likewise, Jane. Thank you for having me.
JANE FADER: Neera Shetty is the executive vice president and deputy general counsel for the PGA TOUR. She has been with the TOUR since 2008. In this role, she's responsible for advising on all legal matters, including international, employment, litigation, and immigration issues for the PGA TOUR and the tournament business -- Tournament Players Clubs.
Her DE&I work began in earnest in 2019 with the formation of the PGA TOUR's Inclusion Leadership Council.
Neera, thank you for being here.
NEERA SHETTY: Thank you so much for having me.
JANE FADER: So it is so great to have you today. I just want to thank you up front for the incredible commitment you have put in over the last months and years to this topic.
So before we -- or as we get into today's session, and I know you want to provide the industry with a really thorough update on the incredible collaboration that is under way, but before we go there, I wanted to first just open up and talk about DE&I in general, what is it, why does it matter, and why is it so critical to golf's future.
Laura, can I invite you to speak on that first?
LAURA DIAZ: Sure, sure. And great to be here and great to be in front of all these golf enthusiasts.
So when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, at the LPGA recently we have talked about this notion of updating our files in a sense, right? And what I mean by this is culturally we tend to focus on similarities, right? But when we look at diversity, it's all about understanding and valuing what makes us different, right, and that there are many, many dimensions of diversity. When we talk about diversity, we can talk about race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, social economic status, religion. It's just such a wide topic.
Equity. It's about fair treatment, access, opportunities for advancement. And recognizing that there are barriers but working to overcome them.
And then inclusion, right? It's about creating that environment, because you want to make sure that individuals or groups not only feel welcome and supported but that they belong, right? So I think we're all committed. Everybody here on the panel is committed to bringing more diversity to the game, Jane.
And I know we also talked about why it's important for the future of golf, right? So looking at that, golf is a global sport. When we talk about the tours, the PGA TOUR, the LPGA Tour, we play all across the world. At the LPGA, we serve members from 50-plus countries, so it's important that we keep this topic at the forefront as we continue to make the game more accessible.
JANE FADER: Thank you, Laura.
Sandy or Neera, anything you would add into that?
SANDY CROSS: I love what Laura shared because having that foundational understanding of the fundamentals of diversity, equity, and inclusion across all golf industry stakeholders is critical. We have to understand the what and the why, deeply understand those before we collectively as an industry can move to the how. How do we operationalize diversity, equity and inclusion.
So, Laura, thanks for what you shared. I think it's critically important.
JANE FADER: So before we jump into the work that is currently under way, I wanted to take a minute and look back. Neera, I'm going to throw it to you first. Golf's history, how important is it for us to sort of address the reality of golf's past? Why do we need to look at this sort of head-on and really make this part of the conversation?
NEERA SHETTY: Yeah, that's a great question. As we've talked about it and before we got on to this panel, it was, you know, we're not that far removed when there was a Caucasian-only clause in the PGA of America's bylaws. Trying to overcome some of that historical exclusion is what we have to be very intentional about. And as Laura and Sandy are talking about the three dimensions of diversity, equity, and inclusion, all three aspects of that are incredibly important right now. We need to make sure that we are not only letting people know from all different backgrounds that they are not only invited but that they are welcome and that we are going to try to provide the equitable means so that they can participate in golf.
So this is going to take a lot of work. It's already under way. It's not that we haven't tried this before, but now we know we've ave got a lot of work that we are planning to do and will do to make sure that we address all of those fundamentals as we move forward as an industry.
SANDY CROSS: I'm glad you mentioned the Caucasian-only clause of the PGA of America constitution, which was in place, I believe, sadly, from 1934 to 1961, and we cannot minimize the very adverse multi-generational impact that that clause had on the business of the entire industry. You know, I think about so many PGA members and possibly LPGA members who choose that career path because maybe their father was in that career path or their grandfather, or on the LPGA side their mother or their grandmother, it's often a generational choice and the whole idea of, if you can see it, you can be it. So for all of those years, nobody could see it from the Black community. Nobody was inspired to choose that career path, and I think collectively as an industry we are still overcoming that, and, as you said, Neera, there's a lot of work to still be done.
NEERA SHETTY: And that is a great point, Sandy, because the thing is it permeates everything. If you don't see it, you don't necessarily, as Sandy was talking about, you don't want a career in it, you don't watch it, you don't engage in it. So it permeates every aspects and why it's so important that we take this head-on and do the work now.
LAURA DIAZ: Another area that we talked about in the last few days is how golf has evolved, right, and technology and how those have also become barriers to access. If you think about the robust caddie programs in the '50s, '60s, '70s, right, where most of the African Americans came through those caddie programs as a feeder system. But once golf evolved, we got golf carts, then that quickly disappeared. So it's just a lot. I think at the LPGA we're proud because we didn't necessarily have a Caucasian-only clause. And there's a great story that Renee Powell tells. When she was at an event with Kathy Whitworth, there was a situation where they weren't going to let her check into a hotel, and all of the players were there and they said something along the lines, either we all stay or we all go.
So we're proud at the LPGA that there's been that sentiment of quote-unquote we stand together, and we see this as a continuation of what we do within our organization.
JANE FADER: Thank you. I think you've all made such good points. I'm just, I'm going to ask one more time because I do believe, I so believe that part of the path to move forward is really being comfortable addressing things that could be uncomfortable and feel -- you know, I think it's no one person's fault, right? We all feel sort of equally responsible.
But I feel like before we move forward here, anything else that just, as we look back and think about golf and just really want to be mindful about saying, Hey, it's okay. It was not good and we own that and apologize for that and just want to be able to move forward together, you know, knowing that it's still not going to be perfect moving forward.
NEERA SHETTY: Yeah, I would say that I think that is what has been so great about the efforts over the last eight months, really, is seeing everyone come together to understand the importance of this issue, work very hard, very passionately, but together, knowing that one individual group, one individual person, isn't going to overcome the challenges that we put ourselves in right now, but that working collectively and collaboratively we can engage one another, we can work together to make sure that we are all leveraging the resources that are available to us to make sure that we understand where we have been, but really where we need to go.
SANDY CROSS: One thing I'll add, and it's not something I believe that the industry needs to apologize for, but in the more recent decades, we have collectively focused on growth of the game, player development, very, very heavily and far less so on some of the other areas we're going to get into, such as the industry work force. Rhett mentioned the two million jobs and the industry supply chain, 84 billion dollars and 15,000 businesses. So we have really widened the lens on what we're focused on. So I think that's a very material shift for the industry.
JANE FADER: That's great. And a good segue, Sandy.
Can we, do you want to go ahead and give us some context of how this collaboration got started and introduce the work groups and what has been happening? A lot of things happening.
SANDY CROSS: Sure, Jane, I would love to. This really kicked off on, specifically, July 7th of 2020. The CEO of the PGA of America, Seth Waugh, the PGA TOUR's commissioner, Jay Monahan, and the LPGA's commissioner, Mike Whan, gathered together a couple dozen industry leaders from a variety of companies and this was in the wake of the George Floyd murder. And they gathered, again, a couple dozen golf industry leaders on a call, a video call, to talk about solving for a truthful challenge. The new or renewed interest in the sport, the momentum that golf experienced, how are we going to capitalize that, capitalize on that interest and retain that interest? And, equally important, how are we going to bring greater diversity to our sport? So that was the two-fold impetus behind the diversity, equity, and inclusion golf industry collaboration being kicked off in July.
And, as you mentioned, Jane, we formed six work groups and you'll see them here on the screen. And I look forward to talking about each one of them. And, again, this is a very multi-pronged, multi-platform approach. We've broadened our collective activities beyond just player development.
But the five other work groups, the work that's going on in those groups, is absolutely going to help grow participation in the game and inclusion in the game.
So, if we'd like, Jane, we can talk through each one of these. We'll start with education and skill development. This group is really focused on attacking golf's culture at the point of play. Obviously, there's many things we can all do from our respective organizations and our respective businesses within the golf industry. But at the end of the day, when a consumer, a perspective golfer, comes to a facility or one of our events or tournaments, they're either going to have a great experience and come back or possibly not have a great experience and never come back to the game. So this group is education and skill development. I mentioned earlier, operationalizing inclusion, moving beyond just understanding why it's important and what it is. How do we bring that to life at the point of play where we have an opportunity to capture and retain consumer interest, particularly from individuals from diverse backgrounds, different identities, different abilities.
Laura Diaz, who is with us today, is part of this education and skill development work group.
Laura, is there anything you would like to share more specifically about the work?
LAURA DIAZ: Sure. No, I think that the great part about the work group is that it's not just one organization or certain individuals sort of leading it. It's collective. So you have individuals from manufacturers. You have individuals from organizations, grass roots groups as well. So we can really work together in a sense. And one of the documents that is already out is the Inclusion Guidelines for Golf Facilities. And this piece is a great way and a great tool to give facilities a benchmark in a sense of what they can do to become more inclusive.
And then the other piece that we're working on is really on compiling content, because we already know there's really, really good work out there, so how can we take all of these organizational best practices that already exist and put them in front of other individuals and organizations so they can be continually working collectively within the industry.
SANDY CROSS: Thanks, Laura. One thing I love about the Inclusion Guidelines for Golf Facilities, it really spans the business operations. They can look at inside operations, outside operations, how authentically welcoming and inclusive is their staff. Also, look at their marketing and communications through a lens of inclusion.
So we're excited about that. We need the industry's help on getting that out there and getting broad-based adoption at all golf facilities across the country as well as tournaments and events.
So, Jane, we'll move ahead to the next work group, talent acquisition. This group is deeply committed to identifying and attracting and engaging talent from diverse backgrounds into the golf industry workforce. And we think about those two million jobs in golf, and what does the composition of that workforce look like? They are the individuals that are delivering the products, so we need that workforce to better reflect the demographics of America.
Neera, I know you have some familiarity with this group. Can you share a little bit more about their work?
NEERA SHETTY: Yeah. Thanks, Sandy. Yeah, so this group has been working very hard. One of the first things that they're trying to tackle is really aggregating all the different types of jobs that are available in the industry from every different group. I think sometimes people assume if they're not comfortable with golf or aren't familiar with golf, that they think that you either have to know a lot about golf or play golf in order to be successful, and with this job board that is being created, what we'll be able to do is show the breadth of the types of jobs, whether it's back of the office, like a legal job like mine, or a finance, whatever it might be, that this will show the breadth of all the opportunities that are available across the golf industry.
And then to build on that, they are going to look at recruiting plans, coming up with a specific plan to make sure we're targeting those that are underrepresented in our sport so that we can have their voices, their seats, at the table.
Also working with different groups that might have those diverse backgrounds and trying to attract talent from those particular groups, and then obviously marketing it, making sure that people really understand that there is a place for everyone in the golf industry as an employee.
So those are some of the things that the talent acquisition group is doing, and really looking forward to seeing how that better allows us to attract the diverse talent we are looking for.
SANDY CROSS: Thanks, Neera. I'm particularly excited about that job board because, as we all know, it's really hard for a jobseeker to navigate the golf landscape. There are so many entities and so many opportunities and also huge misperceptions. A lot of the jobseekers think they have to come from a golf background, they have to have golf playing experience or ability, which is not the case.
So the idea of a singular destination where a seeker can go and find those great career opportunities, and on the flip side where all of us employers can go and find that talent from diverse backgrounds to bring in our workforce. I think it's going to be really, really powerful.
The next group is human resources. I have the pleasure of leading this group with an amazing team. We are committed to supporting the development of inclusive workplaces in the golf industry. So all of the employers in the golf industry, we want to help advance inclusion in those work places.
We actually just concluded an RFP process where we have identified Buffalo Group and IVY Planning Group as a tag team to help us deploy an industry-wide employee survey. We want to talk to everyone who is working in the golf industry to understand their sentiments about workplace inclusion, what makes their workplace inclusive or possibly not inclusive. And then those sentiments that we glean will inform the creation of an inclusive toolkit that all golf industry employers can leverage at their place of business.
Also coming out of the survey we will have fresh data on the composition of the golf industry workforce. Last time that data was gathered, I believe, was 2015, so it will be very interesting and insightful to see how the meter has moved since 2015.
Next up we have the youth and adult player development group -- I'm sorry. Do we have -- oh, procurement. How could I skip procurement? Go on back. My mistake.
We talked about earlier this 84-billion-dollar-a-year industry. Tremendous opportunity. And 15,000 companies are participating in golf's economy. But if we think about it, what percentage of those procurement opportunities in that 84-billion-dollar-a-year industry are being awarded to minority-owned, women-owned, LGBT-owned, disabled-owned, veteran-owned businesses. We don't have that data, but we suspect the numbers are probably pretty low. So this procurement work group is committed to advancing inclusive procurement practices industry wide, and ultimately having a golf industry supply chain that better reflects the demographics of America.
Laura, you're kind of close to this group. Can you share a little bit more about it?
LAURA DIAZ: Sure. I think one of the, I guess, immediate action items to come out of this group, you talked about a survey. I know internally at the LPGA and throughout the different organizations they sent out sort of a survey questionnaire to all of the vendors, so gathering that data is going to be key, like you said, and we'll be able to know kind of the makeup of our vendors, because I think we all believe that expanding our supplier diversity is really important.
And I think another action item that's come out is updating and adding a supplier diversity statement, right, so that those seeking opportunities in the golf industry can see that up front. At the LPGA we have added that to our website because we want minority women, people of color, people in the LGTQ individuals, veterans, people of different physical abilities to know that we welcome their business.
So I think a lot of action items coming out recently, and I'm excited about the future, the supplier portal, where the industry will have access to sort of search the different vendors. So lots of cool stuff coming out of this work group.
SANDY CROSS: I think that supplier inclusion database as a portal you mentioned is going to be really powerful. I believe it's unprecedented in golf and unprecedented in all of sport. This will be a singular destination where any of us can go and find those diverse-owned businesses easily to include in our bids, and that will absolutely propel a change. So when that -- the phase one of it is launched. It's at a destination called VRAconnect.org. So if anyone would like to go register for utilization of that portal, please do.
And we're also going to need industry-wide help on putting diverse-owned businesses into that portal. The more we all use the portal and contribute to the portal, the more powerful it's going to be.
So now we have youth and adult player development. This group is committed to bolstering community-based programs that are authentically engaging consumers from diverse backgrounds. And there are many of these organizations all over the country and they are doing great work, particularly in communities of color, and they, frankly, have the authentic connections and the customer base that the broader golf industry has so long aspired to attract and engage with.
So by bolstering these community-based programs, we can connect and bridge the consumers in those programs with the broader golf industry programming opportunity.
Neera, can you give us some more insights about the work of this team?
NEERA SHETTY: Yeah. I'm really excited because this Friday, this past Friday, we launched the Grassroots Grants Program. It is a grants program intended for charitable organizations that are looking to increase participation in historically underrepresented groups. The great thing about this program is we're really supporting these local organizations that understand the communities where they are, the issues that might help drive more -- greater participation, and really trying to find ways to support the people who really understand and know how to implement these programs.
So that program, just as I mentioned, opened on May 7th. We have already had a number of groups that have submitted applications and we're really excited to see what the results will be once the grants are, the recommendations are finalized and the money is in the hands of these local organizations.
SANDY CROSS: Will there be subsequent phases of the grants program after this initial phase?
NEERA SHETTY: You're a hundred percent right. This is just the first phase. We're going to take when we learned from this review process and the application process, apply it, and then we will readminister the program in future phases once we are able to assimilate all that information.
SANDY CROSS: Thanks, Neera.
And one other element, for the audience's benefit, relative to the youth and adult player development group, strategically they're going to begin advancing a National Sport Development Program and a nationally aligned network of facilities which can provide a framework for activation. You know, oftentimes when the industry collectively comes out with programs, signature programs, it's hard to activate the scale at the local level because, as we all know, the facilities and businesses are independently owned and operated. So strategically this work group will be focused on developing that national framework, which will help us scale things more efficiently and effectively in the future.
And then, Jane, our sixth work group, last but by no means least, is our marketing communications work group, and they are committed to establishing a unified voice to grow interest and inclusion and participation in golf. They are about to launch a multi-year campaign and initiative that broadens the definition of golf and invites everyone, especially those from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in our industry, and have them engage in golf in their own way and on their own terms.
So, Matt Corey, who is the Chief Marketing Officer of the PGA TOUR and is one of the work group leads, is going to be going deep on this initiative in our next session.
JANE FADER: That is a lot of information. It is really good information. So Sandy, Laura, and Neera, thank you for taking us through all of it. I have a couple more questions to ask you, and then we have seen a few questions come through the chat, which is awesome.
But I do want to mention that we are putting additional information from each of these work groups on the WEAREGOLF.org website because that will be a landing place that you can go to to find out more information, how you can get involved.
But before we take -- I have a couple more quick questions before we grab some from the audience, and I want to just play devil's advocate for a moment. But, you know, the industry has been trying to crack the code for diversifying and growing the game of golf for what feels like decades. I just wanted to ask each of you to talk a little bit about how you think this is different.
So, Neera, can I start with you on that one?
NEERA SHETTY: Yeah, I would be happy to start. First of all, this comes from the top of the organizations. Sandy mentioned that this is led by Seth Waugh, Jay Monahan, and Mike Whan. It involves everybody across the industry. Everybody is invited to participate in these groups and shape the way that they are moving forward. And the great thing is is we were talking about the collaboration that's going on. Every group is using their resources, capitalizing on their resources, to try to further the efforts of these various work groups. For instance, the TOUR's entered into a relationship with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which has an outreach to over 230 publications that reach Black and African American audiences, and we are planning to leverage that, and I understand that some of them may be on the call today, so I hope that they're listening carefully. But we're really hoping that we can leverage that as we continue the work on these work groups.
So I think that what we're seeing now, which is different, is just that everybody is coming together and really putting some passion and thought into how we can work collaboratively to try to overcome some of the past issues and really move forward in this area.
SANDY CROSS: One other thing that I think is uniquely different is the size and scale and scope of this effort. We have approaching 90 individuals participating in these groups and they are individuals who are really passionate about the subject matters and are rolling up their sleeves to help with the work, which is, frankly, why we call these work groups, that -- because real work needs to get done and it's getting done.
So almost 90 individuals across about 38 companies in these groups. And these are individuals with decision-making power and strength of brand and budgets at their companies. So I do feel that is a unique point of difference versus some prior efforts.
LAURA DIAZ: One thought that I had was about ownership and how everybody's really taking the ownership collectively. I think we have all taken the time to listen within our respective organizations and really invite these individuals to have a seat at the table, because I always like to say, if you're not on the menu, you're not on the table. So it's just so important to invite these people into the conversation.
So having, like Sandy said, 90 different individuals as part of the work groups, 38 different organization, that's really powerful.
JANE FADER: That's great. Thank you.
Okay. We have had a couple of great questions come in, so I'm just going to go ahead and throw a couple out here.
The first one is: It seems like a great opportunity to work with municipal golf courses that could implement or already implement in their community.
Sandy, do you want to talk about how that --
SANDY CROSS: Absolutely. We want and need and would love the municipal golf facilities to be involved, starting right off the top with the Inclusion Guidelines for Golf Facilities. We want to get widespread adoption of those at as many municipal-owned facilities as possible. VRA Connect, the supplier portal, when those municipal facilities are procuring goods and services, can they go into that portal and include some of those diverse-owned companies in their bid processes. They can help spread the word about the grants program. When the job board aggregator goes live, they can post their job and career opportunities on the job board.
So, really, as I think -- those are just a few examples, but as I think about what's going on across all of the work groups, I believe there's connectivity opportunities for municipal-owned facilities, absolutely.
JANE FADER: That's great. And I know as Matt Corey comes on and we talk about that, I think there's a great opportunity for them to be involved in the marketing effort as well. So, thank you.
There's a couple of different questions, which is awesome, on people wondering how they can get involved. You mentioned there's 90 or so people involved already, but I just want to make sure we're really specific about the call to action.
Neera, do you want to let people know where they can find more information and how they can get involved?
NEERA SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned earlier on wearegolf.org, if you go under DE&I Industry Collaboration, you can find a description of all the different work groups and the e-mail addresses of the work group leaders.
There's different ways that can you participate. Obviously, Matt's going to go into the marketing campaign -- well, sorry, movement. He's corrected me a few times. It's a movement. It's going to be multi-years. But they can participate in that particular program.
There is, as Sandy was talking about, the procurement database, accessing that. They can provide their resources, just leverage their relationships, to join in the efforts.
The job board, both participating by posting on it and also by providing ideas.
And then, of course, there's joining the work group themselves and really providing those perspectives.
So there's really a lot of different way that is every organization involved in golf can really lean in to what all the work that is going to on right now through the industry collaboration.
JANE FADER: Okay. That's great. Thank you.
I'm going to ask one more question, and then for those of you, if we didn't respond, we will follow up with you after the fact, and really appreciate you being interactive.
The last question is: Those work groups -- what do those work groups have to do -- how will those work groups lead to growing the game? Like, what does the business of golf have to do with actually growing the game of golf?
Laura, do you want to respond first to that one?
LAURA DIAZ: Sure. I mean, I think it's directly related, right? We need to have more people of more diverse backgrounds and experiences to continue growing the game we all love, and I think it starts right there with doing the work that we have identified, and really owning it from every aspect, right, from media, to HR, grass roots organizations. And if you look at the full scope of these work groups, we're covering all the areas that are going to lead to more jobs, right, that are going to lead to getting more people at your facilities to earn more revenue, that are going to lead to encouraging more young people to get involved in the game and come play at your facility. So it's all intertwined.
JANE FADER: Great. Thank you.
SANDY CROSS: I think about the need for the golf industry workforce to reflects the demographics of America. Like, the individuals delivering the product have to look more like the consumers that we all aspire to attract. It's human nature to spend our discretionary income and our leisure time in places and spaces where we feel comfortable and we want to see others that look like ourselves or come from similar backgrounds as our own.
And then I think the same about procurement. The companies that are benefiting from the economics of golf, if they're involved in the golf industry supply chain, those businessowners and their employees are going to be much more inclined to participate in golf as a leisure time activity if they're benefiting from the economics of the sport. So I believe procurement can be a driver for growth of the game.
JANE FADER: Those are great points. Thank you.
Please join me in thanking Sandy and Laura and Neera for their time. I know if it were up to you three, you would have brought all 90-plus people with you so that every voice was part of this panel, and I know we couldn't make that happen, but I do want to thank you for your truly inclusive leadership and guidance throughout this process.
So it is my distinct pleasure now to introduce to you Matt Corey, the Chief Marketing Officer of the PGA TOUR.
Thank you, all.
MATT COREY: Thanks, Jane.
Yeah. I'm excited to be here today with Jim Beatty and Charles Dillahunt as well. We're going to take you all through marketing creative, even some background on some focus groups that we have done, and really the rollout and next steps in terms of providing assets to the whole industry.
But, Neera, you did, you corrected yourself. You said it right. This is a movement, not a campaign, and we really look at this as a multiple year opportunity to inspire more people to think about golf and we're going. And we're going to talk a little bit more about how that's done.
But, by the way, for anybody who is passionate about marketing, please come join our work group. When we talk about starting on this journey, we are in the pre-season. I'm going to talk about the launch, which is going to start next week. But this is the pre-season and our season is about three years long. So we need all the help we can get. We need great marketing minds and we need folks that can help bring this message alive across the industry as well. So please reach out to me. We would love to have you on the work group for sure.
Yeah, so we have one goal and purpose as a work group. So if you look at our purpose, it's really to take the momentum that golf has experienced in the last six to nine months and turn that into a movement, and, specifically, grow interest and participation in the game. And how we're going to do that is develop one unified voice for every golf brand in the country. We'll talk a little bit more about how that's going to come alive in a second. But that has been a unique challenge over the last four or five months to really think through that.
So just, as we have spent time building up to today and this week and next week as we launch, we spent a lot of time going over background and context. You can't launch marketing and messaging without really understanding where you've been as a sport and where you need to go. And we spent a lot of time with marketing and communications experts again. This work group's been fantastic. It's a cross-section of a lot of people across the industry.
If you look at this slide, there's -- look, we have seen these things before. We have heard these things before as a golf industry. There's a variety of barriers to entry that we need to understand before we position any messaging to our audience to try to inspire them to play golf, from costs too much or it seems boring to me or it's intimidating. So many different messages.
We have also had to really understand what our watch-outs are. So when I say watch-outs, I mean, like, look, we can't necessarily do a marketing effort, have a marketing effort that says, Hey, golf is ready for everybody, come on out, we're ready for you, we're completely warm-welcoming and ready, because sometimes it's not, and it's not as comfortable for all different diverse groups.
It also can't seem commercial. This has got to be really authentic. If we force messaging or creative about people that seem to be having fun because we staged it, that's not going to be real and authentic. So we're going to show that to you in a minute on how we're actually using the world's social posts and posts online to bring that to life.
And then, finally, we're going to show golf in a lot of nontraditional ways. So keep that in mind as we dive into the creative here. There you go. It's just the -- we call it nontraditional and non-stuffy ways. We're going to try to make sure that we invite the world to think about golf in a little bit of a different way. So we're going to get to that in just a second.
So as we dive into the creative, which is the fun section here coming up, just real quick, on our team we have got a really good diverse group of people that have really been grinding and focusing on building out the creative. Some folks of diverse backgrounds across different sports and just different diverse individuals. We thought that was really important in a creative team.
And their design direction. So the next slide. These are four really important words I want you to keep in mind before I show you -- before we show you what we're going to show you in a second. So how do we make sure our marketing and our creative is -- I'm going to add a fifth word, fun. It's got to be joyful and vibrant. It's got to be authentic. We talked about that a second ago. And it really needs to be inviting. Like, we need to invite everybody to try golf and try golf in different ways. So think about those four words as we get into the creative.
But, also, there's three key aspects of this movement. And the first one is creating that invitation. We have an opportunity to leverage the power of an invitation. When one of our friends invites us to do something, we're probably more apt to do it than if we just get up off the couch and try to do it ourselves, right? So we're going to talk in a little bit, towards the end of this session, about having two audiences, about leveraging golfers to invite a friend and inviting the rest of the world. We sort of have golfers and non-golfers or what we have decided to call golfers and future golfers because everybody's just a future golfer. So, like, how do we make sure that we invite future golfers independent but also leverage the golf world to bring them along. So the power of an invitation is really important.
Anything that we develop has to be simple. What's a clear simple call to action that can actually allow the world to lean in and participate and tell their own stories? So we're going to get to that in just a second.
And, also, we want to broaden the definition of golf. We really want golf to be seen as more than just traditional golf. So, Andrew, if we go to the next slide. Here we go. So when you look at this, golf isn't just 18 holes on a perfectly manicured fairway or high-end country club. Golf is going to the driving range or just going to putt-putt or a Topgolf or just being a fan. Golf can be that little three-year-old girl chipping in her backyard with a plastic club. If we did the right thing as an industry, when parents go to Target or Walmart and they go to the toy section for their little two-, three-year-old girl or boy, and they're looking at the bat and the ball, the soccer ball, or that little plastic golf club and that little ball, plastic golf ball, that's what we want them to buy, right, we want them to buy the little golf set that gets them started into golf.
And so we're going to show golf in some different ways, both traditional and nontraditional, to really broaden the definition of golf.
And then, finally, before we get to dive into the creative here, when we think about building a logo and a design for a logo, the logo should be fun. It should have some personality and it should be all those things that those four words talked about earlier. It should be vibrant. It should have real energy and be joyful. And so when we worked through all of our different designs and calls to action -- by the way, we probably started with 40 or 50 different little fun calls to action and tag lines and where we landed was something pretty cool that, by the way, Jim will tell you in a minute about our focus group feedback, but our focus groups overwhelmingly positive in terms of liking this phrase here in the U.S. And drum roll, let's flip to the next slide. Where we landed on a call to action is Make Golf Your Thing. And we started with -- we started, as we narrowed the field down to like -- we started with this phrase called Golf Your Game, but we were using golf as a verb and it's like a little too cerebral, like, why are we trying to do that? Let's make this easier. Let's add the word "make." Like, hey, make golf your game. But we were getting hung up on the word "game" because we didn't want it to feel like a sport and we wanted to make it a little more casual, and so we changed the word "game" to "thing."
And the examples we give are, like, Steph Curry is basketball player, but golf is kind of his thing. And we can bring this to life in so many fun different ways. So when you look at this slide there's going to be a -- with the toolkit a full rollout of creative assets. And the use of colors is a big deal as part of this marketing effort and this movement, the ability to use a variety of different vibrant colors, both straight on against a white background or a light background and then even reversed out. So all of this is going to be provided to all of you in a toolkit.
Now, before we get into -- okay, visually how are we going to bring this to life and what is it going to feel like? We had to sort of the sit back and say, What inspires us? What should we do that could make this come alive in a different way? And we looked around at a variety of different marketing and brands that were out in the marketplace, from Nike to others to small brands as well, and we really started to gravitate towards bold colors, fonts with some movement to it even when they're static, and just sort of that bold feel. And when we thought about the last 30 years of golf, are we creating something that could be a little different and really stand out and make people get excited and make people think, Hey, that looks different than what I've seen before from the golf industry.
So we took this as inspiration and I'm going to walk you there you a series of sort of designs or fun little ads here. Let's go to the next slide. If you look at this one, here's a series of pictures of just people having fun playing golf in social settings. Whether it's a Topgolf or a driving range or some other situation, they're just having fun. It's social. It's not -- they're not sweating and trying to lower their handicap by one point, but there's certainly a set of imagery that says, hey, look, we're just going to go out have a good time, have some drinks and some food, and we're going to swing a club and hit a ball. So there's a whole social aspect to this that we believe can really come alive in our visuals.
There's also putt-putt. So if you look at the world of mini golf and putt-putt, everybody can play putt-putt, right? And so bringing certain visuals to life that says, hey, mini golf is golf too, and just go grab a little putter and a ball and have fun.
So we'll have a series of visuals that this -- that fits underneath the Make Golf Your Thing. Look, you can make golf your thing just by playing putt-putt, right? You can be the world's putt-putt champion and make golf your thing.
The next one is family. So when we think about golf, there's no doubt that a common theme through all of our focus group work and conversations have been about the fact that there's a generational opportunity with golf, and that generational opportunity can go from grandfather to daughter to grandson or granddaughter, families getting together to play, father-son, mother-son, father-daughter. Like, you name it, there's a real aspect of going out and playing golf with your family that we want to bring to life through this. So making golf your thing, making golf your thing as a family, it's our thing as a family, can be a lot of fun.
Another one is making sure we show really inspiring and empowering images, both from a female perspective, the LGBTQ community, etcetera. And so we're going to make sure that our toolkit has a variety of assets that lends itself to really those motivational imagery. Even adaptive golf, I mean, adaptive golf is a really big deal. We've got to really call that out because golf can be so therapeutic and so fun for everybody, including adaptive golfers.
The next one we'll show you, there's like two more here. One is really around nontraditional golf, sort of that edgy swagger fun street golf, golf in a warehouse district in Portland, or you know -- this guy on the left kind of -- he's, I don't think he's on the edge of a battleship, but I'm going to pretend he is. Like, you can play golf anywhere. It can be fun and cool and edgy and suddenly golf is really, really different because there's no grass there.
And then, finally, kids. When we think about golf and showcasing the fun that little kids can have, we see videos on Instagram every day, every week, of some little two-year-old who has got a way better swing than I'll ever have and is absolutely enjoying the game of golf and loving golf. And I don't know what's his pure joy more than this little photo in the middle, but this kid is having a lot of fun and he's got golf clubs in his hand.
So the toolkit that we're going to roll out that Charles is going to talk to you more about is going to have all of these assets ready to use for anybody.
A couple other things before we get into an actual rough cut of a TV spot that we're going to show you in a minute, we're going to make sure that we promote #makegolfyourthing in every bit of our marketing and advertising. And we really believe that if we get out of our own way, if we say, Tell us how golf is your thing. Tell us how you're making golf your thing. Let's let the world tell their stories and all of this real authentic organic content will surface and it will be -- it will just be a ton of fun. By the way, I was supposed to switch my background, like, five minutes ago, so here we go. I finally did it.
But we're going to bring Make Golf to Life to life hopefully everywhere. Hopefully when you think about your own marketing efforts for your brand, you've got your own campaigns, but how do you make Make Golf Your Thing ride along? So we'll use that hashtag. We're going to develop some fun stickers, both literal stickers, physical stickers, and virtual stickers, for all the social channels.
And then, finally, last thing I'm going to share with you before I hand this over to Jim and our focus groups, is let's talk a little bit about music and TV. Let's go ahead and go forward. Here we go.
So music first. We really felt that the song It's Your Thing by The Isley Brothers fit really well with the overall position of the brand and the marketing effort of making golf your thing. So we actually had a diverse band, a band that's really a collective. They bring diverse artists together and just let them go and let them record great music. And we're going to play a little snippet from their music video, and then we're going to show you the TV spot next in just a second. Let's play the music video.
(Music video played.)
MATT COREY: So they put a fun new feel to this but a great tune. Now, before we show this rough cut TV spot, here's what I want you to focus on. First of all, this is the first rough cut that we're going to be developing. And it's meant for a general audience. We're going to develop more specific creative for a female audience, an African American audience, an Asian audience, a Hispanic audience, you name it, we're going to develop a lot more creative as we go, sort of in phase two here, later this month in June and July. So you'll see a lot more creative that's added to our toolkit that's rolled out across the industry.
But this is really the first piece. Now, what I would like you to do is, before we hit play on this, I would like you to think about how this makes you feel. Don't worry about the specific imagery. We're going to -- this is all user-generated content, by the way, so we just pulled this and got permission from all these folks all over the world to use this content, and that's how it can become really authentic. But focus on how this makes you feel and then we'll come back. Let's go ahead and play it.
(Video played.)
MATT COREY: So that's one version that doesn't have voiceover. We're going to do some different spots that have a call to action at the end. When we develop marketing for and creative assets for the golf industry, a call to action might need to be, hey, we know golf is your thing. Invite a friend to make golf their thing, or something like that. But we're certainly going to have this end card that encourages people not only to use the hashtag but to go to makegolfyourthing.org and visit the website, etcetera, where they can learn a lot more.
By the way -- yeah, let's go to that next slide. Focus groups next? Okay. I'm going to hand it over to Jim, but we're going to come back. We're going to talk to you a little bit more about the website, timing, and some next steps.
But, Jim, I'm going to turn it over to you.
JIM BEATTY: I'm ready to golf. I'm excited. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.
So outside of the industry-wide creative team, we have held five focus groups with key leaders, golfers, and non-golfers, or I guess we should call them future golfers. Those groups included African Americans, Asians, Hispanic, women, and the LGBTQ community. And, overall, we received some very, very positive feedback, and I believe there's a slide with some of the quotes from them. There you go. Makes me smile. They weren't talking about my game. But, anyway, you can see what the quotes are there and that's outstanding.
And we received some very specific input as well. An example, in the -- from the Hispanic focus group, they recommended we try to show golf as an generational moment to represent family.
From the women's focus groups, the emphasis was on showing fun and empowering imagery. Folks were generally excited about this. Some were cautious, hoping that the industry would truly come together, meaning all brands to market and promote to make golf your thing.
I would also like to add a couple of other points that go beyond the movement; and that is, as Neera mentioned, the memorandum of understanding, the MOU, between the PGA TOUR and the National Newspaper Publishers Association. I'm pleased to have been a part of that. That's 230 regional and local newspapers serving the African American community with 22 million readers weekly. I've got to thank the industry for that, and thank NNPA for that. And then lastly, on my part, I want to thank the industry for the support that I have received as the organizer of the inaugural African American Golf Expo and Forum.
So, so much is going on. I am so pleased to be a part of this and thankful to be a part of this and very optimistic about how this is going to play out over the next few years.
So, with that, I want to introduce Charles Dillahunt to talk about the next steps and how this is going to be brought to life with the activation and toolkit. Thank you.
CHARLES DILLAHUNT: Thanks, Jim and Matt. Happy to be here presenting to everyone, and I'm going to walk you there you the toolkit that Matt has mentioned a couple of times that we have created for owners and operators of golf facilities nationwide.
So it all started with the activation idea that Matt presented earlier, and our thought was we wanted to ask golf operators nationwide to an Make Golf -- or #makegolfyourthing invite for new, returning, and latent golfers. The name is super important, Make Golf Your Thing, as Matt said. Golf for me is not the same for Matt. It isn't the same for Jim or Jane or Sandy, you name it. So we really want people to grasp onto that theme of making golf your thing. Don't be scared to wear, I don't know, shorts to the golf course or a crewneck to the golf course. Make it your thing. It's what you make it.
So the other thing about the name is, as we roll out the campaign -- or sorry, Matt, the movement, and people start seeing these commercials on their TV or they hear about Make Golf Your Thing on the podcasts, we knew that -- or a podcast, we knew this owners and operators would be able to also take the things we put in this toolkit operationalize it around their club so that consumers will recognize it when they come onsite. They will say, Oh, I remember that Make Golf Your Thing or I've seen that during the PGA Championship or some other sort of golf broadcast, and they're going to recognize that you're a welcoming and accepting club.
And the other good thing about it is it's highly customizable. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach. And that's where the name really comes into play. And the best part, it doesn't have to be a discount for those owners and operators. It can be whatever you want it to be. Tony Martinez, who is on the PGA of America national board, he's also a PGA member, he is one of our owner-operator examples in the toolkit. And Tony decided he wasn't going to do a discount, but he was going to just show people making golf their thing at their facility, at Keeton Park in Dallas.
So there's a bunch of different ways you can grasp onto the movement and join. And if you go to the next slide. The toolkit really starts with an intro explaining the movement. We knew that everyone wasn't going to be able to listen to this spiel or if they weren't able to see the video, we wanted an owner golf operator to see the toolkit, have a brief intro that explains the movement and also links to our website so that they can pick this up and run with it.
And then the next thing in the toolkit will be the owner-operator Make Golf Your Thing examples. We wanted owners and operators to really grasp onto the movement, and we knew that they wouldn't be able to do that unless they had some examples of this really working in the field.
I'm going to list the operators that we have worked with to show different examples and different types of golf entities in the toolkit. I won't take you through each example but just the names of those that are in it.
ClubCorp will be having 90-plus clubs. Thanks to Mark Gore and his team for working with us on his invite -- or their invite. Toad Valley and Allison George. Keeton Park in Dallas, Texas, and Tony Martinez. Topgolf, the World Golf Ranking TOUR, and Toptracer Ranges will also be in the toolkit, specifically the Golf Center of Arlington for the Toptracer Range. Troon North and Troon will be in the toolkit. Pine Ridge and Cathy Harbin, who is also on our PGA of America board. Santa Ana and Twin Warriors Golf Clubs. And Derek Gutierrez, who is on the board at the PGA of America. Marvol Barnard Golf and Abby Liebenthal, who runs For the Ladies and also works with the USGA.
So we got a broad diverse list of operators who are all making golf their thing. The most important part of this will be the SEO tactics that we'll put in the toolkit as well for owners and operators to use.
And there's more resources to come. The first thing I would say is YouTube. So when I want to learn how to do something, whether it's change a tire or, I don't know, cook pancakes, if you will, I go to YouTube most times, and we know that consumers will do that as well. We did the research around that.
So there are a couple ways that owners and operators will be able to join in on our Make Golf Your Thing collaborative YouTube playlist. The first option is if you have your own YouTube channel already, you can upload videos to that, entitle them Make Golf Your Thing, and we will pull them into the collective playlist, and you can also take videos from the collective playlist, which will be hosted by the PGA TOUR and the PGA of America, and place them on your own channel.
You can also send your own videos that you've made in to the PGA of America and PGA TOUR contacts who will be running the channel, the collaborative playlist, and have those featured for the whole world and industry to see as well.
The next thing that will be important in that section are the SEO tactics that -- SEO stands for search engine optimization. So specifically when someone searches Make Golf Your Thing example or Make Golf Your Thing invite near me, if you're an owner and operator and you've included things like #makegolfyourthing on your social media or you put it on your website or you've put the logo on your website, you're going to be, if you're on a certain radius of the person searching, popping up when their searching for Make Golf Your Thing examples in the community nearby you.
So that's another important thing. We'll also have a specially curated search bar on the makegolfyourthing.org website where consumers can go and look for different Make Golf Your Thing examples in their area.
And then, lastly, social media. We'll be having some social media copy placed in there to help owners and operators with their social media promotion. The thing we would like to do or the most important thing we would like to do, since this is a movement, as Matt calls it, is canvas social media with #makegolfyourthing. If you remember last year, a lot of the pro TOUR players wore black and red for Tiger on Sunday, celebrated all he's done for the game and wished him a speedy recovery. Or more recently, the LPGA hoodie has been making its rounds. This past weekend, I saw Steph Curry was even wearing it. More of his teammates have worn it. Professional athletes from all sports have worn the hoodie. Those are sort of natural reactions to a movement that we want to this to have as well, right, we want people to see #makegolfyourthing and really grasp onto it, start sharing it across social media, and the next thing you know it takes over and it's a viral moment. So it's something we're looking to create and we'll have dedicated channels for this movement later on, not at the beginning, we would like to get some critical mass first, and then we'll be starting those channels you can follow as well.
There will be creative marketing assets to help you join in on the movement so that those consumers I talked about going to your facility will be able to see you promoting the logo in the window or putting it on your channels or even doing mockup logos of your logo right next to the Make Golf Your Thing logo. The assets included in the toolkit will be a style guide so you can stay on brand with Make Golf Your Thing and also put that right next to your brand, and then we'll also have digital and print photography, some social media help that I just mentioned, the typographical textures, which are, if you saw in the video, at the end it sort of swishes around, or in the photos that Matt was showing, it's sort of like a Make Golf Your Thing, but it's in a squiggly line. So that's the typographical texture you'll able to use to Photoshop actions you saw in the video, as well as the current fonts and logos, so you can be on-brand with Make Golf Your Thing.
Two more things to share, and then I'll pass it back to Matt. We put the Inclusion Guidelines for Golf Facilities in the toolkit. We created the Inclusion Guidelines for Golf Facilities to assist PGA pros and other industry professionals and operationalizing inclusion at the point of play.
So it's really a good way to pressure test whether or not you're outside welcoming staff or your food and beverage processes are inclusive or not. It's an unbiased way, and you can really see where you're at on the levels of inclusion, if you're hitting the mark or you're not. So that will be in there. Linnet Carty, on the PGA of America team, worked on those with others in the industry last year. Her contact information is also included if you have any questions or comments about that as well.
Last but not least, we'll have some frequently asked questions that we know all owners and operators will have about this toolkit. Jane Fader and her team at the World Golf Foundation put these together. We had received a lot of comments, a lot of helpful edits from owners and operators, that will lead up to releasing this toolkit. So those questions are in there and if you have any other questions or concerns when this comes out on the 17th, that's when it will be debuted, please feel free to reach out to me, Matt, Jim, or anyone else on the marketing and communications group and we'll definitely get back to you.
So, Matt, I'll pass it back to you.
MATT COREY: Thanks, Charles. And thanks, Jim.
So just real -- a couple quick closing notes. First of all, we talked about having two audiences. The toolkit will have assets to make sure that -- and as we build out even more creative, as we get past this next week with our initial launch, it's a three-year movement, and develop more and more creative, this spring and summer, we're going to have assets for two audiences. For golfers, so a message to golfers from clubs, etcetera, to their own databases to encourage golfers to bring a friend, invite a friend out, and then the creative for future golfers, as well, with some subtle differences to some of that.
Timing. Charles touched on this. The website is -- it's -- right now, it's just temporary. You can go to makegolfyourthing.org, and it's just sort of a temporary placeholder. Going to be launching that. Our goal is next Monday.
And next Monday will start the rollout of all of the different marketing and advertising assets, not only for all of us to use across the industry, but also outbound as we do some acquisition marketing as well.
And the, finally, a question came up in the chat earlier about measuring, about measuring success. From a marketing standpoint, there's all of the key industry metrics that we have in terms of rounds played and participation, etcetera. But the other thing we're going to do is we're going to do a pre-, post-brand study this spring and summer. So we're going to ask a variety of diverse non-golfers, future golfers, about their opinions of golf, about their desire to play golf, to try golf, etcetera. If they had to rate golf on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of like, hey, 10 is you're super interested, you're definitely going to try it in the next month, or 1 is low, do they rate golf a 3 or a 4.
And then after they're exposed to this creative, after they see the creative through the course of the spring and summer and we show it to them again, we're going to do a post-measurement to see if we're moving hearts and minds. That's ultimately what marketing needs to do. Are we changing hearts and minds and attitudes towards golf and towards the ability and the desire for people to say, you know what, I want to try golf, I want to try golf in my own way. I don't have to have 14 clubs and join a country club, but I'm going to try golf this way.
So we wanted to mention that because that was a question that got brought up in the chat earlier.
So, Jane, I think we can open it up now for questions.
But thanks to Jim and Charles.
JANE FADER: Yes, Matt. Thank you. There have been some great questions being asked in the chat. So, again, if you have a question, please feel free to include it in the chat. We are capturing them. If we don't get back to you right now, we will follow up with you.
So the first question is -- and, Matt, I know you already answered it in the chat, but I wanted you to hit it one more time.
Somebody who knows there are golf influencers out there who are changing the game through social media and redefining what it means to make golf their thing, sharing some examples, will they be utilized in this campaign? I just wanted you to give an opportunity for other people who might have great suggestions.
MATT COREY: You meant will they be utilizing this movement? Yes.
JANE FADER: Not specifically, but if people know of other influencers, who are changing --
MATT COREY: Again, I was kidding. It's not a campaign. It's a movement. I'm just going to keep saying that. I'm in a T-shirt that says that.
Yeah, the answer is, yes, we want any and all ideas. So there are golf influencers, then there are people who love golf that have other jobs to do, right, and they might be artists or entertainers or whatever. And really what we want in this marketing is to show our audiences people that look like them, normal people, etcetera. Now, do we sprinkle in even a few celebrities here and there? Yeah, why not? If they love golf, why not leverage that. But we're open to any and all people that the world may call an influencer. What we're doing -- and the other reason, candidly, why this is a movement and not a campaign is it just, that's, that's what we're doing. We're trying to grow and diversify a sport. We're not trying to sell product, right? We're trying to grow and diversify a sport and we're getting a lot of really positive feedback so far from a lot of different -- several different influencers and celebrities, etcetera, saying, I want to participate. Not, I want to participate. What are you going to pay me? But, hey, I want to be part of this. I want to help, which is really cool. So open to all ideas.
CHARLES DILLAHUNT: In the operator toolkit, Abby Libenthal at the USGA, was our sort of influencer, if you will, example of how an influencer could adapt or adopt and make golf your thing and really make it their thing as well. So she will be adding that to her events she has nationwide, and it's just another example of how someone could do that. And, yeah, I think we're happy.
Matt, I think the one thing I did miss out on saying is, this is just version 1 of the toolkit. There will be version 2 and 3 and 4. The more examples we have and success stories of people adopting Make Golf Your Thing and really making it their own, the better. We're looking to tell those stories, so please send them my way if you find those out later.
JANE FADER: Okay. That's great. I'm going to jump in with another question here.
One says: I'm glad to see the word "fun" added. Did you consider the word social? What we often fail to appreciate is that golf is among the world's greatest social activities.
MATT COREY: Without a doubt. It's almost like a given. If you looked at the different pieces of creative in that rough cut, most of them are social, right, most of them are people together having fun. That's way better than individuals on their own having fun. So the more we -- the more examples you have when -- literally we have gone out and we have had people reach out to us, but we have also found really inspiring little clips on the internet, and those folks have been really excited to participate in this. More group settings and smiling and laughing and having a great time, the more we have, the better. And I think that as we get this rolling, we're going to get a lot of people reaching out and showing how they're making golf their thing in a group social setting, whatever way, shape, or form, family, friends, etcetera. So the more the merrier.
JANE FADER: Great. Thank you.
There have been a couple of questions that rolled in on just timing and how to access the assets. I think that Charles answered some of those questions. But just one more time, where do people go to get them? What will be there? And is there anything that they can't use?
CHARLES DILLAHUNT: They can use anything that's in the toolkit. So it will be available on the 17th, which, I believe, is this coming Monday. We will be having that -- a link to that on the makegolfyourthing.org website. The one thing that will happen, when you click on the link to open the document, it will ask for your name, your company affiliation, and your e-mail, just so we can track who is entering the document, and then, also, who is -- we can look for who is actually implementing Make Golf Your Thing. So it will be available on Monday and we may have a communication going out about that as well to everyone or if we don't already, we should get that probably, so...
MATT COREY: Jane, one other note on that too. We really want every organization and individual on this call to figure out how they want to use it. I mean, you know, this is our, this is our industry movement. This is our marketing. How do you want to use it? How do you want to make it your own? How do you want to let it ride along your current campaigns that you simply tag the end of a TV spot or a print ad or an e-mail with Make Golf Your Thing in a fun way, and if we do that, if we all do that together, we really do bring this to life in one unified voice. And I even had a conversation with a manufacturer late last week who said, I want to throw it on our boxes that we ship out when we ship out product. And I said, Absolutely. So we talk about this being an open-source toolkit. We want all of you to take the assets and use them as you see fit, and when you have fun ideas, please let us know and we're excited to partner with you on it.
JANE FADER: That's great. Matt, I think we can jump to the next segment. There's additional great questions and we'll go ahead and loop back with you to respond to them but in the interests of time, we'll -- I think the next step is to introduce Greg McLaughlin, CEO of the World Golf Foundation.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Thank you, Jane. I hope you all enjoyed the DE&I industry collaboration roundtable as well as Making Golf Your Thing. Our third panel discussion is with the leaders of the PGA TOUR, the PGA of America, and the LPGA Tour. So with that, I'll introduce our first panelist, Commissioner Jay Monahan. Jay's the fourth commissioner in the history of the PGA TOUR, entering his fifth year this his current role.
Seth Waugh is Chief Executive Officer of the PGA of America, and Seth is in his third year as CEO taking over in 2018.
And our third member of the panel is Commissioner Mike Whan. Mike began as commissioner in 2010. He's the eighth commissioner in the history of the LPGA Tour and the longest tenured commissioner, in his 11th year.
So, gentlemen, thank you for joining us today on National Golf Day. So just diving right in. I mean, we have heard from our two previous panel discussions about the golf industry's efforts focused on DE&I and the movement that Matt just talked about. Sandy Cross mentioned that you three have led this effort and been at the beginning of it. Can you each comment on the importance of the golf industry coming together to support this initiative and why it's so important to do so now.
With that, Mike, I'm going to begin with you.
MIKE WHAN: Sure. I mean, there's probably many answers to that question about why is it important and why now, but I'll try to maybe limit it to three, which most people that know me, knows that's a pretty good limit if I can just get to three.
Number one, this is the right thing to do and I think that probably gets it for 80 percent of the people. It is the right thing to do and the right time to do it. If that's not enough for you and maybe it's not, it's the only real path to grow our sport. If we're going to wake up and leave this game better for the next generation and generations that follow that for the game, we have got to let the rest of the world into our sport. And so it's a great opportunity for us to selfishly attract and retain growth.
Maybe the most important reason, I remember the first time Seth called me with this concept, we started talking about how we feel like we have been to this parade before and one time we watched it go by. We saw this huge diversity upswing after the Tiger Woods boom. We've also watched the parade actually go by and wake up and realize we're about the same industry as we were pre-boom. And so the question is: Did we learn anything? We probably weren't ready. We probably weren't engaged. And we certainly weren't aligned. If we don't capitalize on this opportunity, it won't be because of a failure to align, to engage and be ready, because that's what this initiative's been about. It's been about creating alignment engagement and being ready to really open up our sport to a more diverse group of players, workers, and fans.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Thanks, Mike.
Jay, what are your thoughts?
JAY MONAHAN: Well, I -- that's a great list that Mike just walked through. But I think when we think about what we have all been through over the last 14 months and you look at what has transpired, to me, the game of golf, and in particular the WE ARE GOLF collaboration, in the middle of a pandemic, the work that was done to stand our sport back up and prove that we could continue in a healthy and safe manner, and to really galvanize our sport in the process, should prove to us all that when we come together we can accomplish so much. And to Mike's point, we have an opportunity right now. We have an opportunity that we have never had before. We have had more people discover or rediscover our sport than we have seen at any other point in time. And it is absolutely incumbent upon us to make the momentum that we have established and make it perpetual and to come up with all the ways to make certain that this game is proving time and again that it is welcoming, it is inclusive for all, for absolutely everybody, whether it's from a recreational standpoint or from a career standpoint.
And I'm biased, but you look at -- and this was just asked in the question, but there's no game that better connects people, that's more social. And we haven't had a period of time where we have been taken away from social activities like the last 14 months. We're coming back on line. Our sport has been on line and it has redefined the ways to access it, whether it's 18 holes, nine holes, Topgolf, driving ranges, simulators, broadening the definition, welcoming everybody in, and making a long-term difference in our sport is something that everybody in this industry has a common interest in and I think we have never had the opportunity like we have right now, and we have got great leadership, as everybody has just heard, across the board with these Committees and great passion and there's nothing stopping us.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Seth, you've been -- this has been a passion project for you now for eight, nine months. Can you expound a little bit on what Mike and Jay were saying?
SETH WAUGH: As someone once said to me, the recently converted are often the most passionate, right? So since I'm the new kid, that's right. Look, I think they have hit it. I -- we not only have an opportunity here, we have an obligation, right, as leaders, and I don't mean just the three of us, I mean all of us collectively, to leave the room better than we found it.
And we have this incredible opportunity. Because of Jay and Mike's amazing leadership last year we were the first sport back on television and, so at the highest level, and we showed how united we were as an industry in terms of scheduling and everything else we have been able to accomplish, and we also led recreational. We had -- who knew that a pandemic would be a great gift to the sport, right? But it's turned out to be that because of the natural advantages of social distancing and who you -- knowing whom you're with. And, you know, it brought families together. It's not just that the participation is up, it's who it's up with. We have 500,000 new juniors and we have parents playing with their kids and it's generational, right? And golf is cool right now and so how do we continue that?
And so the opportunity is to both grow the game but also make the game look more like the rest of the world and then maybe we can make the world behave a little bit more like the game, right? Because at the end of the day that's what we're about. And I grew up in a family, in an ethos, that life is a team sport and we can do so much more, as Mike and Jay have just said, together than we can separately. I think the big mistake when Tiger burst on the scene is that we built a bunch of golf courses and people bought golf clubs and put them in their closet after a couple times, instead of creating the movement that Matt's talked about. And look, you can see it today on this call, you can see it in the chat, you can hear it from Neera and Laura and Sandy and there's just an incredible passion. I'm so proud of these people. What Mike and Jay and I have sort of turned on the lights in the room, but people were already there waiting for those lights to go on and they have immediately jumped in. They're doing it, they have their day jobs and yet they're putting passion and sweat and now associations are putting their checkbook behind it as well too, because they believe in this. And it's going to raise, kind of all boats will rise in this and we couldn't be more excited.
And you see a screen in front of you of the number of folks that have already committed to financially helping here, so this is both a thank you to everybody on that screen, it's been gratifying and amazing and frankly the calls have all been pretty easy. And it's also an invitation to everybody else who is out there to say, would your, you know, entity want to help as well. So we want your sweat, we want your passion and to a certain extent we need your money, right, because nothing is free. And this is a, sort of all these groups have committed multi-year to this. This isn't a one and out, this is very much, as Matt said, a movement.
So we couldn't be more excited and this is all happening very organically and it's, as I said, I can't tell you how proud I am of the industry to rally around what was the germ of an idea that has become something very real and something that can leave not only our game better off, but hopefully the planet in the process, right?
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Thank you very much. And, yeah, I would echo your comments about the partnership that we have had really throughout the entire industry on this. But really the leadership that Jay, Mike and Seth, you guys have put forward has been great, as well as the corporate partners that stepped up and have helped so far.
So, transitioning to charity. Our industry that we're in is a four billion dollar industry annually of money going to charity through tournaments, through organizations, through events, players. And I'm going to begin with you Seth, PGA REACH focuses on youth, DE&I and military, and you just completed the PGA Works event right here at TPC Sawgrass for the first time. Can you tell us about the evolution of that championship and the impact it's had on the college athletes?
SETH WAUGH: Yeah, we couldn't be more excited about it. It's, historically, it was called the International Minority Collegiate Championship. It was really the national championship in golf for HBCU's. And like a lot of things, it got, I guess, a bit tired and funding became a problem. And they approached us about 20 years ago -- us being the PGA of America -- about taking it on and we did. And we're proud of kind of what we have done to, not only keep it alive, but breathe new life into it. We created a work, a job expo around it, because it was a germ of this idea of creating more, a wider funnel of people in the industry, but also people that look differently than a traditional what traditionally golf has looked like, right? Because as Sandy said earlier, you want to be, you know, you want to be around people that look like you and in certain ways and so that's always been a big part of it.
Last year when sort of the social justice movement began we sort of took stock in that event and said, you know, we think we can do more with it. That it can become a call to action for the industry and for other industries that may want to sort of make a difference. And that we could blow this up, if you will, in a great way and we approached our friends at the TOUR and our friends at Comcast and both of whom were very enthusiastic about becoming partners with us in this. Comcast is contributing not only dollars but also broadcast and lots of exposure to it, so we now have live broadcasts of this championship and that will increase going forward.
Jay and everybody at the TOUR got hugely enthusiastic about making it a part of their portfolio and offered to use TPC Sawgrass, so that the home of the PLAYERS championship was where they played the final round. And we were there for three days and New World Headquarters was the site of the job expo and the kids, the coaches, the partners that showed up were treated to an unbelievable three days. So I think that exposure is only going to continue to increase. We're going to bring it to Philadelphia next year which is Comcast's backyard. We're going to use the Comcast building which is, no offense, Jay, but it is the Tesla of corporate headquarters, it's an incredible building. I think that will be mind blowing. And, you know, we want to expose these folks to what this industry is. We said it before but it's an 84 billion dollar industry with two million jobs, right? And it isn't that you don't -- it's not as if you can't play it for a living that you can't be in it, right? I'm a pretty good witness to that. And so how we expose them to places that they aspire to is part of what we're all about and so we want to bring this championship around the country, we want to get more and more corporate partners to embrace it as a way to help in this social justice cause. And we think in time we will be able to give great aid towards endowing HBCU golf programs and other hopefully facilities at HBCU's, which we think are a great sort of engine for talent and not just golf talent but people talent throughout our great country.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Mike, I'll turn to you, the LPGA foundation turns 30 years this year and you've supported young people and women through the game of golf, you provide grants scholarships and have a great partnership with USGA on Girls Golf. Talk a little bit about the impact that your programs have had.
MIKE WHAN: It reminds me of 2009 when I was introduced it was at Madison Square Garden and literally the first question I got after the, Who is Mike Whan, was how do you feel about the future of the game for women. And I remember thinking, being a fairly newbie at the time, I find the future of the game questions kind of funny, because the future of the golf game exists, they're playing, it's junior golf. So if you want to know what the future of golf looks like just look at the demographics of junior golf. So as soon as we left that meeting I went back and did my research and realized that about 85 percent of golf was male and 15 percent was female, it was the same amount as adult golf. So when somebody asked me about the future of the game I thought it would almost be hypocritical to believe that it was different when the junior game wasn't. So I have a real good friend who might even be on this call, Roberta Bowman, who used to always say to me, What are you intentional about? And we decided right then to get intentional about making the future of this game more female.
And so if you jump forward to today where 38 percent of junior golf is women versus the 14 percent back in 2009, we're getting closer to a future of this game that's going to feel 50/50. At the time it was 75 percent white male, now it's I think 32 percent white male. So it's, it -- really, the future of this game really does look and feel different than the game of adult is today and the important part is, once you change junior, it's becoming the future of the game. So I'm really excited about it.
I tell you that story, Greg, because that same person, Roberta Bowman, said to me, in the beginning of 2020, Are we intentional about diversity in the game or just about women in the game? And we do consider women a key minority in golf over the last, at least my 12 years, that we were driving. But I really wasn't intentional and didn't make it intentional in my building about people of color and different backgrounds and really feeling like we were changing the face of the game. The LPGA's always been intentional about women, but I don't think we pushed it far enough. And I would tell you in the last, certainly in the last 12 months we have got intentional about the future of the game and not just about women -- we're certainly not going to ease back on women -- when we started talking about Girls Golf, meaning for me, back in 2009, we had 4,500 girls in the program, now with 100,000 girls, it's not surprising that what we're seeing is a much more female face of this game.
But I think that same intentional approach that now we're making as an industry, there's reason for me to believe -- I think some people might be on this call thinking, I heard this before, this is just a bunch of people talking, and they will go on to the next important thing. I would just tell you, I've lived this and when you get intentional about something and you make it across the board and you make a personal commitment, you'll see the change. We have seen it in women and we're going to see the change across the face of this game in the next decade.
SETH WAUGH: Mike, if I could jump in, I think the intentional part is exactly right. And you added -- there was a question in the chat and you addressed it earlier, Mike, that what is it about the business of golf? Why are we doing it? And it's not just because it's the right thing to do or it feels good. Last time I checked it's over 50 percent of the population are women, right? And next census in the United States, over 50 percent of the people we think are going to be of color.
So if we want to be a growth industry, if you carve out two 50 percents, that's a pretty hard growth path, right? And so if you want to think about like, okay, how do we, what's the addressable, what's the TAM here, right? We want the world to be our TAM. Not one quarter of the population, right? And that, you know, it's what we have got to get at. And that is all about being intentional, it's being human, but it's also being smart, right, and that's what this is about.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Jay, I'll pose the question to you: The PGA TOUR has been a leader in charity for decades. Last year you announced three billion dollars had been raised for charity through the TOUR and its tournaments. First Tee had a closer relationship recently with the PGA TOUR. Why has charity been so important for the PGA TOUR for so long?
JAY MONAHAN: Well a couple things before I answer that question. Going back to that screen with all of the organizations that are supporting this movement, I want to say, say and send my personal thank you. You're going to find this movement to be a rewarding one and as you're hearing from all these conversations today. And as it relates to anything that the PGA TOUR has accomplished for charity, every organization that's on this call has had a direct impact and bearing on that. So thank you for that as well. Because what we're able to accomplish is really done each week on behalf of the great game that we play and all the communities where we play.
I have heard Deane Beman every single, almost every single time I'm around him, at some point in time when someone talks about charity he will talk about how well golf connects people, but he'll specifically say, You know what happens, every time the NFL wants to raise money for charity they throw a golf turn. Every time Major League Baseball wants to raise money for charity they throw a golf tournament.
And when you talk about three billion dollars or you talk about the charitable events that are happening at golf courses all across this country, hosted by all the great people on this call, a number, the three billion is a big number, the money raised at each event is a big number, but what is it doing, it's going back into that community and it's having a positive affect on people's lives. And that is, that has never been more needed than right now and our sport has never been better positioned to accentuate that.
I think this movement is a part of it, but I also think that you're going to continue to see us do more and more and more on that front. Last year with the pandemic or I should say the prior year, we were 200 million dollars raised. Last year when we shout down on March 13th and didn't know when we would go coming back and work with all of our industry partners to stand our schedules back up both in the men's and women's professional game, to think that we generated 160 million dollars for charity at a time when it was needed and needed in all the communities where we play, was exceptional and there are so many stories, so many great stories about the way our players took responsibility, got involved and helped come up with creative ways to make certain that happened.
And going back to Mike's word, "intentional", the First Tee founded in 1997, Greg, you and your team have been down the road, we as an organization have never been together and as we thought about coming together in one building here in Ponte Vedra it made perfect sense to be intentional about making the First Tee a part of our global headquarters and to really be intentional about the future of the First Tee and to make a concerted effort to support you and the team as you think about modernizing the curriculum, as we think about refreshing the First Tee brand, as we think about providing even greater support to all the chapters in our network, all the things that we felt like were opportunities, doing that with you literally 20 yards from my office right now and the team here is something that we thought was really important and it was time to be intentional about.
And last year as an organization as part of our overall diversity equity and diversity -- diversity -- DE&I initiatives, we made a concerted effort to make certain that we were, in this next phase of the First Tee, we were going to specifically benefit underserved or marginalized groups and make that a significant part of the First Tee's efforts to diversify our sport.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Thank you. Transitioning to the professional game, we have to get a little intel from you three. We have a lot of golf fans that have been watching. I'm going to stay with you, Jay, your Super Season is 32 events completed, (video froze.)
MIKE WHAN: Looks like we lost Greg.
JAY MONAHAN: I think I know what Greg was going to talk about, so I'll take it from here.
So, listen, I think that, like every company and organization, we're, we were greatly impacted by COVID 19 and we're still being conservative about the way that we navigate the pandemic, but as you've seen the last few weeks, we're returning our venues to virtually full capacity.
And this past weekend was a great example of that. And when you go back to last summer and the return of golf, I give our athletes a ton of credit. The world and our fans needed to be entertained and there was very little entertainment out there and I think that our players, both on the men's and women's professional game absolutely delivered that and did that without spectators.
And you think about the performances of Collin Morikawa and Dustin Johnson and Bryson and JT and John Rahm, I could go on and on and on. On the PGA TOUR, that led to increase in ratings, increase in consumption across the board that sustained itself into this year. And a long way of saying I think it sets us up for this year and the end of this year that we're experiencing.
Next week we'll be in Kiawah with Seth with the PGA Championship, which will be incredible. We will later this year be in Tokyo for golf's return to the Olympics. We will crown our 15th FedExCup champion at the Tour Championship. And I think the bottom line is that all the work that we did as an industry to bring our sport back and do it in a healthy and safe way has set us up in the midst of this movement that we're undertaking to really take advantage of the fact that there are more eyeballs on our sport and there is more interest than ever, there's more intention than ever to bring more people back into our sport and keep them in our sport for their life times.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Seth, you've got three big events coming up. You've got, as Jay mentioned, you've got the PGA next week -- thank you very much for joining us today -- and then you've got the KPMG Women's PGA Championship and then that fun little team competition in September. So talk a little bit about your, what's going for you guys there year and how exciting it is.
SETH WAUGH: We're really excited. And just to hit on one point about the charitable component that Jay touched on is, if you're wondering if there's an appetite to give to golf, and to use this and I think that golf is the biggest engine for good in the world, right, charitably, but also relationships, lessons learned, time spent in beautiful places, etcetera, etcetera, just so many dividends to it.
But we have another pillar on our foundation called A Place to Play and it's about -- there was a question earlier in the, on the first panel, about what can municipal golf courses, how do they fit in this ecosystem. And we added what's called A Place to Play, which is trying to re-create community golf around the country. And we had a chance to do a public/private partnership in West Palm Beach and we convinced the city and the mayor, not -- it was easy, relatively, that we would privately raise the money to build that course and then operate it, so take it off their hands. Like most munis, they're either mismanaged or underfunded and therefore they deteriorate over time, although they were great courses, built in the right places.
And so in the time of the pandemic, in about two months we were able to raise 45 million dollars to both restore it and endow this property and it will be run by the foundation, but a dollar a year kind of lease deal. And we think that that laboratory for golf and creating access which, at the end of the day if we create all these new golfers they got to have someplace to play, right? And that's what this is all about and running all the programs we can through it. So that engine is very much a life and well and we're excited about it. And then rolling out that model sort of around the country to do hopefully lots of similar things.
But in terms of -- this is our championship series season, right, and it's a full sprint for our group. We started with our Club Pro Championship a couple weeks ago in Port St. Lucie, you mentioned the Works Program or event last week and then 10 days from now we are in Kiawah for the second major championship of the year.
We couldn't be more excited. We're not going to have full fans, but we're going to have a significant amount of fans. Kiawah's been very incredibly supportive, that area. We sold out in less than a week when we put the tickets on sale last year after Harding Park, which meant obviously there's pent up demand, it's a great market, people believed that they can get out, they want to and believe they can get out of the house.
So we're, it's going to feel pretty much like a full fan experience because of what Kiawah -- it's a fairly small venue -- so we couldn't be more excited about that. And, Jay, thanks for lending your players to us for a week.
We have got our Senior Championship is in Southern Hills at Tulsa, in Tulsa the week after.
And then a couple weeks after that Mike becomes our partner at the KPMG, which is an event we're hugely proud of.
And as we all know, each location has different perspective on how many fans are suitable and reasonable and we obviously defer to that, but we're trying to push the envelope in terms of what is acceptable and sort of how can we do it in the safest, most responsible way.
And then we have got a little thing called the Ryder Cup in September which we think is going to -- we are certainly planning on it being full fans, from both sides, to create the atmosphere that we all know and love. It will be the first to kind of chance to root for your country since this whole mess started.
The Olympics obviously is going to happen, but with sort of no fans, if you will, which is too bad, but reality. And so we really think this is a coming out party, not just for golf to a certain degree, but for all of sports and indeed all the world. So couldn't be more excited and about being able to stage that and what we hope will look like every other Ryder Cup has looked before. Whistling Straits is a great venue and Captain Stricker is excited and as is Captain Harrington and it will be good fun and hopefully great theater.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Mike, your TOUR is just returning from Asia and you're actually just getting into the meat of your 34 event season. You got three majors, you got the Olympic, you have the Solheim Cup. Last year you went to Europe and you have been to Asia. Talk about the challenges that you've had to deal with to overcome to be able to schedule your events, play your tour, get your players opportunities to play and then a little bit about what we're going to see the rest of the year.
MIKE WHAN: Yeah, Greg, we take a lot of pride and I would even say a core to our purpose is being a global sport, showing the world that golf is borderless, women from all every over the world coming together. To do that well you got to play all over the world, but that doesn't make us very pandemic friendly sometimes. So we were pretty quick to have to stop our tour early in January when we were planning to be in Thailand, Singapore and China last year. But we are finding our way through.
It is sometimes strange, as most Americans know on this call, even between states it can be quite different. Between California and Texas and Chicago and Michigan you can have really different approaches to COVID protocols, but it really gets interesting when you start heading over to Asia. We're currently -- vaccinations aren't at any kind of the same level -- so it was strange to me to drive down this weekend and be part of the Walker Cup and have that experience and then get on the phone every night at midnight with my team in Thailand and Singapore and realize that we had like five tests a week, other than players going from hotel to course and back there was nowhere else we were allowed to go. We weren't allowed to leave the hotel weren't even allowed to gather in the open air areas of the hotel. Blood tests in the middle of PCR tests. It's really quite challenging.
And usually the world is pretty quick to embrace the LPGA because we bring in players from 50 different countries, 190 countries are watching us, it really is a global world event.
Right now telling a government, especially in a country that is lower in vaccinations, that, here we come, from 50 different countries and TV crews from all over the world, we don't seem nearly as exciting as maybe we did before. But to Jay's earlier point and to his credit getting all of us back on course, because I was -- I was very strong to stand right behind Jay in May when he went first. And I said to him, I hope you understand that I'll be going second four weeks later and watching you as you go. But they were great with us and in helping us through the protocols that they were going through.
And I think success begets success. I think because we went to Scotland last year with a lot of success, that changed the way a lot of people felt in the States in the back half of our schedule, because we played the full back half of our schedule, Thailand and Singapore were really open to listening, we're going to be in France, Scotland and over in Asia this fall.
So I wouldn't say playing professional golf -- I think Jay would agree -- is as much fun as it was a couple years ago, but the fun is coming back. And most importantly our viewership is up 35 percent since we returned to TOUR in summer of last year. So if you don't think the fans -- not only here, but around the world -- so for us it's been this incredible boon of fans showing -- just like we have seen the pent up demand going to the golf courses as Seth mentioned and the rounds of play and the types of folks walking on the golf course, maybe that hadn't for years, we're seeing the same thing happen in our viewership all around the world. The pure desire to want to watch our game and to watch the world come together -- and while the Olympics won't have fans there, my guess is the Olympic ratings will be huge, because I think people really want to cheer for countries, see the best athletes in the prime of their life competing to see who is the best.
So yeah it's been anything but easy, it's certainly -- it's never been one size fits all. Just when you figured it out with Chicago, Hawaii has a different approach. And if you figure it out with Hawaii, I can promise you Australia feels different than they did. But that doesn't stop us from playing and not only has it not stopped our fans from coming back, but they're coming back at levels, at least at the LPGA, that we haven't seen in 20 years. So pretty excited about what 2021 has become and will become as we roll into some of our biggest events and Solheim Cup right before the Ryder Cup, so it should be an exciting summer for us, despite I think about five million dollars spent to date on COVID protocols.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Thank you. And thank all three of you, really for what you're doing for the game. I would like to just thank our panel members for participating today, hope you enjoyed their insightful comments. Gentlemen, any final remarks you would like to make?
JAY MONAHAN: I would like to just thank everybody that's on this call for the extraordinary work that they have done over the last 14 months. I think what Mike, Seth and I have done has been more visible, just by the nature of our organizations, but battling golf course to golf course, state to state, battling with supply chain issues, all the challenges that everybody had to confront and the graceful manner that I think our industry has addressed them and again been open, been welcoming and has been inspiring people to keep this game a big part of their lives is extraordinary and I just want to, we wanted to say thank you to everybody on this call today.
MIKE WHAN: I'll make a personal request to the gang out there. I don't know what level everybody is within their organization -- and a lot of big changes you have to wait for senior execs to free up budget and to build something. This isn't one of them. I would tell you that the executives at the golf industry are behind this and are waiting for you to take the personal engagement in this. We call our DE&I effort at the LPGA C me, when the C stands for personal commitment, you got to get in game. So if this feels right to you, if you feel like you can be a part of this, please jump in. Don't wait for somebody to come to you and ask you to be a part of this.
I can tell you, for me personally, the greatest gains we have made inside the LPGA have come from employees on their way up to me, not the other way around. And so I would just say, on that slide that you showed before, if your company isn't on there, go ask somebody why they're not. Let's make this an industry alliance, let's change it because it's important, let's make sure that no matter what level you are, what age you are, what background you're from or how long you have or haven't worked in golf, let's make sure that 30 years from now we can all look back and be proud of what we did in 2020, 2021, 2022 and beyond, because I think we have an opportunity to truly leave this game, this sport, and to Seth's point, what this game means to us. The rest of the world deserves it. So let's take hold yourself. And if you've not personally engaged, get engaged. If your company's not personally engaged, get them engaged. This needs to be an alliance of the golf industry, not a few folks, not a few teams getting engaged. So my only advice to you, if you don't see your brand up there, let's figure out how we get your brand on there, not just for your money, we need your momentum.
SETH WAUGH: I agree with obviously everything everybody has said. I think one of two things happens in a crisis, right, you either come together and you come out of it stronger -- not necessarily financially, but stronger in terms of brand and culture and understanding of each other and having shared a hard experience. And I lived through a few, whether it's 9-11 where we lost a building or the financial crisis and then this one, right?
And I would say we had a good crisis, we meaning the industry, had a good crisis and we find ourselves now at the end it have and in a raging bull market for our game, right. And so we have this incredible opportunity and again obligation as leaders to do the right thing with it and I think what Jay talked about is that we have huge gratitude for everybody, all the front line folks that were out there in our game showing up every day and at risk and slugging it out. But they did it with both grit in terms of showing up every day, and Jay used a beautiful world which is grace, right? And that is exactly what we're the most proud of. And as you can tell from the three of us, we're not going away, we care, right, like this, I made the call to these guys and it was a 12-second conversation, they were all so totally in and we experienced that across every organization and leadership to people on the line.
So it's exciting, I think this is an opportunity not just to have a great year in golf, but a decade, this is a generational opportunity that we have been handed. And Mike said it in the beginning, it's shame on us if we don't take advantage of it, right, because it's an enormous opportunity. So thank you everybody for listening and caring so much. It's a beautiful game and we're lucky enough to be in it every day and we just again want to leave the room better than we found it.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: Thanks, Seth.
MIKE WHAN: I keep sending Jay eight and a half by 11 high gloss photos of myself and I just can't get on those shelves behind you. (Laughing).
SETH WAUGH: He's got a rotating picture and we didn't even make that, Mike.
GREG McLAUGHLIN: I wanted to close with one last thing. I think everyone's aware of Mike Whan's departure as commissioner from the LPGA after more than 11 years. Mike, I think I can speak for everyone that you've made an indelible impact on the LPGA and your dedication and commitment to WE ARE GOLF and this movement is going to help us for years to come. So on behalf of everyone in the golf industry, thanks for your strong efforts, congratulations as you transition to the USGA beginning in July. But thank you for everything you've done on this project.
So everyone, that concludes our National Golf Day. I wanted to again thank Neera Shetty, Sandy Cross, Laura Diaz, Mike Corey, Jim Beatty, Charles Dillahunt and our CEO panel for participating in our virtual National Golf Day today. We had 340 people gather today for our panel discussion and 2022 we'll again gather at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando and expect to be back in Washington, D.C. for National Golf Day.
And with that we thank everyone, wish everyone a successful week. Seth, we'll look forward to watching you next week and wish you great luck with the PGA Championship at Kiawah. So thank you everyone.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports