media day for the Constellation Furyk & Friends presented by Circle K. I'm Chris King and I will be your emcee. We are thrilled to have some friends from Constellation and see some familiar faces from the media who have taken time out of their busy schedules to be here and join us.
Thank you for being here at beautiful Timuquana Country Club. Thank you to the leadership, the members and the staff at Timuquana for hosting today's event and our tournament, which is just 42 days away. We are so excited to share updates about the competition, fan experience, and most importantly, the impact this event will have on the local community.
Constellation Furyk & Friends presented by Circle K has quickly become one of the premier events on the PGA Tour Champions schedule, winning awards for social media efforts and most recently winning the PGA TOUR Champions Presidents Award, which is given annually to the best tournament of the year.
These successes, accolades, and most importantly, incredible impact that the tournament has had in the greater Jacksonville community happens in large part due to the people on this stage and the people in this room with us here today.
Before we hear from our guests this morning, I would like to acknowledge a few others that are here with us. We have Miller Brady, the president of PGA TOUR Champions; Tom Harmon, VP of South Atlantic division of Circle K; and members of the tournament advisory board who are here joining us today.
On stage we have Jim McHugh, executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Constellation, the tournament's title sponsor; we have Adam Renfroe, the tournament director for Constellation Furyk & Friends presented by Circle K; Tabitha Furyk, the president of the Jim and Tabitha Furyk Foundation; and finally, Jim Furyk, noted PGA TOUR great and this year's captain of the United States Presidents Cup team.
We'll start off with Jim McHugh. Jim, welcome back to Jacksonville. The Constellation Furyk & Friends is known as the top PGA TOUR Champions event when it comes to sustainability. Now in its fourth year, what are you most proud of when it comes to the support of this event, and what are you most looking forward to in the future?
JIM McHUGH: Yeah, thanks, Chris, and welcome. Welcome to another fun tournament year. Here we are, and those awards are just remarkable to hear each time. It's impressive.
I think what I'm most proud of and our team is most proud of is that the tournament really puts a focus on two things that are really important to Constellation. One is the commitment to the community you talked about, and also the spotlight on clean energy and sustainability. That's very important to Constellation.
We're a few years into the tournament now, and it's very evident to me and I think to all of you that at the heart of this is all of our shared commitment to really supporting organizations that provide essential services and meaningful opportunities to underserved communities.
Constellation and the Furyks, we talk about this a lot, our relationship literally spans over two decades now, and we both so deeply value the importance of giving back, and it's just a shared value in this partnership, and really what we're really immensely proud of is the $3½ million in the first three years that's been raised for these impactful organizations.
As we head into the fourth year, we're once again committing $500,000 of Constellation support to those organizations.
I'm really just looking forward to October when everybody can be here in person and be at the tournament and witness it firsthand because it's a truly special event.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Jim. I know I can speak for myself and the tournament team and everyone in the Jacksonville community in saying thank you for your continued support of this event.
You mentioned the charitable impact last year. The tournament generated a million dollars for local charities, and the three-year total is more than $3.5 million. We have plans to grow that number in the future.
Tabitha, going into the fourth event, what are some of this year's charitable elements you are most excited about?
TABITHA FURYK: Obviously this is a labor of love, the event as a whole and being able to support charities. We cannot thank Constellation enough for their ongoing support. They've been amazing, and truly as Jim mentioned the alignment that we have with the groups that we are supporting here is tremendous. Considering that they are located across the country, but they're helping us to do amazing things here in Jacksonville, we're proud of that.
We're proud of Circle K and all their commitment to our charitable effort. We have so many groups here in Jacksonville that have supported. With $3.5 million we were able to help, just last year, 42 different organizations with projects that they had. We're very proud of that.
Some of it was very hands on. We had a Constellation team out painting houses for Habitat last year, which is amazing. We're in the middle of our fourth build. We just went out and were raising the walls for a veteran who lost his home and was living in a camper. That was a very emotional time, and being able to meet Mr. Brown and hear his stories, and he's owned this piece of land for 41 years and lost his home and it was terrible conditions he was living in, and we're able to now rebuild his home for him.
So we're tremendously honored to be able to do that. We're also hitting milestones for our charity Blessings in a Backpack. We're at 1,200 kids that we're serving. That's 42,000 weekends of food for these kids that they wouldn't have had otherwise, and we're doing that with the help of our sponsors. Overall when you take a look at the First Coast Blessings in a Backpack, it's over 163,000 weekend meals. So there's a tremendous need here, and we're glad to be a part of that and the difference we're making.
Just looking at our St. John's River, we started a new program for high school and middle school students and we have done over 20 field trips, 600 kids probably seeing the St. John's River for the first time last year, and now we're adding an additional 12 field trips with our middle school and high school kids.
Jeff will be here with the First Tee. We're continuing to support them and all the work that they're doing and fingers crossed with some groundbreaking with the new Brentwood Golf Club and the efforts we're bringing there, the new course and new clubhouse. We're very excited about the kids that we're being able to support in that program.
Wolfson Children's Hospital. I can go on and on. I was just talking to the director of our Family Links program who started (indiscernible) been able to help 5,000 families this past year with insurance, with food, housing. It's incredible.
Very grateful for all the support that we are getting. I think we have 24 new partners for the tournament this year, so that's going to continue to help grow our charitable numbers up.
Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: Jim, you listen to all of that and the great work that's being done in the community, the difference that this tournament makes. What can you share from a Constellation perspective what your company stands for?
JIM McHUGH: Yeah, myself and our entire employee base couldn't be more proud. At Constellation we're focused on helping the communities but also leading the sustainability efforts to improve the environment. For those that aren't familiar with Constellation, we're the nation's largest producer of carbon-free energy, and we have more than 2 million customers nationwide, and we're really focused with our customers on managing their energy needs and imprelemting sustainable practice and having a positive impact on the climate crisis.
I think this tournament, and Tabitha just rattled off some of the organizations that are part of this, it's really a demonstration of our unwavering commitment to our goals because three Jim and Tabitha's leadership, their foundation contributes significantly to those organizations, and the overlap is tremendous for us. Youth development, STEM education, environmental sustainability. Those are the organizations that across the nation that we're supporting with our power of community at Constellation.
The other thing that really resonates for us is our customers in the community here in northern Florida get to come out to the tournament and practice some of these things. They get to participate in many engagements, in both giving back to the community and sustainable energy practices and environmental improvements. That's a benefit where people can participate in that, by the way, while watching this tremendous display of golf by Jim and the PGA TOUR Champions.
THE MODERATOR: Excellent. Right now we'll open up for any questions about the community impact this tournament has before moving on to anything else.
Congratulations, guys, for everything you've done in the community. In addition to the charity, a huge success has been the fan experience which you briefly mentioned there. Adam, what new this year can we expect?
ADAM RENFROE: Yeah, so we have a lot of new activations this year and certainly proud of the work that our team has done to bring those to life. I'll start with Tailgate Village. There's two new activations in there that we're excited about.
One, thanks to support from Constellation, we'll introduce this year Constellation Power Pod, which will give fans the opportunity to play golf on a mini golf course right there in Tailgate Village. I think the beauty of that is anytime fans are onsite watching a golf tournament, they get the itch to play golf, so get a putter in their hand, let them participate in that, and I think the added benefit to that, too, is that there's an education piece to it, so they're going to putt on their three holes and they're going to learn about emission-free energy sources. Super cool there. Excited for that, for Tailgate Village.
The second item is we're introducing a new premium cocktail experience, which we're going to preview that for you guys here today. Sol Squeeze is a new tournament partner, and they will have an activation within Tailgate Village. Fans will be able to sample and purchase a Sol Squeeze margarita, a Sol spicy margarita. We have both of those for you guys today to try. Try, not too much.
But very excited about that in Tailgate Village.
Our Circle K Party Porch is growing and it's bigger now than it's ever been, so we're really excited about that. That's been a very well-received venue right there on the 7th hole. Birdie beers may have something to do with that, but it's been a wonderful, wonderful activation.
This year fans will be able to participate in the birdie beers but they can also go and get their favorite Circle K snacks that we're previewing here for you guys today. The Party Porch is going to be a wonderful experience.
Hangar Bar, that you guys may remember from last year, was on the 11th green. We're going to move that the to the 9th green to get that more into the heart of the action. Hangar Bar features craft cocktails from Don Julio and Captain Morgan, but right now we'll have it on the 9th green so fans will be able to watch golf all the way until the end there on our finishing hole, the 9th.
Then the last one I'll mention is Boxto and the Good Feet Store, two of our loyal tournament partners are kind of teaming up this year to bring a golf simulator to our area where the kid zone is, and that's going to be another opportunity for fans to get a club in their hand, which is super exciting, and it adds to the growing environment that we have over at our kid zone.
Speaking of the kid zone, I know Tabitha has been particularly passionate about growing our kid zone experience and our family experience. I'm going to let her touch on our kid zone.
TABITHA FURYK: Yes, so every year we've grown it a little bit. This year will be called our EverBank Kid Zone. EverBank has been a fantastic sponsor, really dedicated in a lot of the charity work that we're doing, providing that financial education piece.
So they have a setup there that they're going to do some activation, interesting activities with the kids which will be fun.
We also have Brooks Rehab. They do a tremendous job with a lot of the patients from Wolfson Hospital. It's called the Little Putters program and it's really giving the equipment to the kids that can't -- it's adaptive equipment, that they wouldn't normally be able to participate in golf, and now they have an opportunity to. Brooks Rehab is going to be there. We're excited to have them.
Jacksonville Zoo is back, so we'll have some fun inflatables, some animals there, no giraffes or zebras but on a smaller scale we'll have those.
RSNH is sponsoring a pavilion, so for the first time this year we'll have a large tent where we can have charitable organizations, families, whoever it may be, grab a bite to eat and sit under a nice tent with some tables, chairs, and really just kind of take a load off and enjoy the kid zone.
Southwest Greens will be back with the putting area.
Who else am I missing? We have so many folks. Baptist is in there with their family lounge. We're expanded their footprint, a really nice air-conditioned spots for families to go, breastfeeding moms, the first aid station right next door. We have everything coming together in this really great area, so it's kind of a one-stop shop for families. I know TacoLu is going to be there so you can grab a taco and have a margarita while your kids are enjoying the putting and all of the other experiences while your kids are enjoying our kid zone. Really excited about what that's going to look like.
Then while we're at it, another one of my favorites, so we have a new wine partner this year. Kendall Jackson is doing a tasting room over on 16 right on the green there, so just behind our 17 tee. It's an amazing area. We've worked really closely with them doing some tastings, so that was really hard to pick out some amazing wine to have there.
But it'll be available at the concession stand. I think we have four different types of wine. We have a prosecco and pino noirs and all sorts of great things. Then there's a tasting room, and the fantastic thing is every day we're going to feature three or four different wines that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise. It's just a beautiful space, lots of great umbrellas, casual seating and you're catching great golf. So we're excited to have Kendall Jackson and Jackson family wines join us this year.
ADAM RENFROE: I would say one thing we're proud of, as we look at growing our fan experience, the beauty about it is that we're doing it in very sustainable ways. We've always referred to ourselves as one of the most sustainable events on PGA TOUR Champions. We might be the most. That's something we're really proud of. As our program overall is growing, there's a couple elements that we're adding to it this year that are not as fan facing as the ones have been previously, so I want to point a couple of those out which you guys may have seen in our recent press release about sustainability.
This year we're working with Compost Jax to compost all of our food waste from the catering operation at the tournament, which is an added level and one more thing for us to get out of the landfills. We've got great partners locally that are helping us with that, and we're excited to introduce that this year and moving forward.
Second, we've got a great partner in Ring Power and worked with them on our temporary energy solutions, so as we bring in a need to power things on-site, we're converting where possible to hybrid generators, so rather than burning diesel fuel all day, they'll mostly be running on battery power which is new for this year. Not something you may know or see being out there but something that we've worked with Constellation on. Obviously they're very supportive and have helped us get there. Proud of our sustainability program. We're proud of what we're doing for fans this year and the added elements. So it's great.
THE MODERATOR: Some tremendous opportunities for fans to enjoy themselves, particularly for margaritas and some wine. Are there any other questions about the fan experience?
Now, we've talked for a little bit and one thing we haven't talked about is the actual golf. With that, we'll turn it over to our tournament cohost Jim Furyk. Jim, during the opening remarks I mentioned that this won the PGA TOUR Champions Presidents Award last year, and a lot goes into that award. It captures the criteria of all the PGA TOUR Champions awards, including intangibles that make the tournament stand out. I want to list a few of those from the press release we put out last year.
It has been a top performer on PGA TOUR Champions since its inception, a consistently strong sales performer that has generated more than $4 million in revenue from local hospitality and sponsorships, one of the most fan friendly events, has a variety of upgraded areas for general admission ticket holders to enjoy the tournament. As we already mentioned, the 3.5 million in charitable giving, the 2022 Players Award which was voted on by the players as their favorite tournament on PGA TOUR Champions, and the inaugural PGA TOUR Champions social media award, which was creative efforts across social media channels by our tournaments. Finally I'd like to give a shout-out to Timuquana Country Club, the host of this event, hosting us here today. This is routinely listed by our players as one of the best stops on PGA TOUR Champions.
While we've talked through the charitable impact and the fan experience, this award also recognizes the players' feelings towards the tournament. Jim, in your opinion, what is it about this tournament and the Jacksonville area that the players love coming to so much?
JIM FURYK: Yeah, I think there's a lot that goes into it. Early in my career when I said, what makes a great event. Well, it's usually I like to play at my favorite golf courses, and at the end of the day, it had to have a great title sponsor. It had to have great sponsors of the event.
Now, running the event, I think there's a bit more to it. I'm really proud of our team and the hard work they put into it, but it's a teamwork amongst everyone, whether it's the great staff here at Timuquana Country Club, as I said our sponsors, our partners, our corporate partners throughout the community, a big crowd for us. We were 10,000 plus here at Timuquana Country Club.
Our players just love coming, and one, they've got a great golf course, they're treated amazingly well, the food is incredible, our sponsors take care of them. It just has a big feel. This event has a big feel for us, and guys one by one come up and tell me they never saw this part of Jacksonville. I've never seen Riverside and Avondale. We've always been in Ponte Vedra; I didn't know this existed. It's beautiful. One by one, they come up to me and really rave about the event.
It's our goal, though, it can always be better, and finding ways to just every year kind of keep moving the bar and keep moving forward.
I'm just really proud of -- really what it boils down to is a lot of teamwork. It's the club, our sponsors, our team, just everyone working together to make this event as good as they possibly can, and the players really appreciate that.
It's an honor to get that award, but it also for us makes you want to work that much harder to stay at that level.
THE MODERATOR: Speaking of staying at a high level, on PGA TOUR Champions this year we've had a familiar name near the top of the Schwab Cup leaderboard. Ernie Els, one of the all-time greats of this game, and his performance this year has been excellent. Can you speak to that?
JIM FURYK: Yeah, it's been consistency. I was looking at Ernie's record even earlier this morning, and three wins this year but a bunch of second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth. He has a bad week and it's 32nd. It's one of those, and then right back to eighth, fourth, first. He's really kind of -- top 10s are almost every week. I think it's really been consistency. He's a great ball striker and just super competitive and a great guy, to be honest with you. He's got his own charitable needs around his family and his son Ben, dealing with autism, and just think the world of he and his wife Liezl and everything they've done for their community, as well.
It's great to see good people like that have a solid year, but he's been playing at that level for a number of years.
He's committed and ready to go.
THE MODERATOR: Ernie is also known for a lot of success in the Presidents Cup. This one is a special one for you being the captain of the Presidents Cup team. How is that process going, and are you excited about the United States team?
JIM FURYK: Yeah, I'm extremely excited. I don't think Ernie would tell you he's had a lot of success. He's a little bit bummed about the record that they have.
I'm extremely excited. Tabitha and I have been working hard all year. A labor of love. My two favorite events in golf are always the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup. I spent a lot of time as a vice captain, assistant captain, the captain of the Ryder Cup team. Just visited a bunch of the players last week in Memphis on Monday and Tuesday, so our guys are ramped up. They're excited. They're not real happy about the result they got in Rome last year and already the guys that are on that team that will be with us this year in Montreal are looking forward to changing things.
We're close. We've got one more week, and our first six automatic qualifiers will make the team. About 15 days from now I'll make an announcement for our six captain's picks, and then we have about 20 days until we show up in Montreal. It's coming fast.
For us, I don't think it can get here fast enough. We've been waiting for a year and a half for the end of September to come. But it's exciting, and I know the international team is going to be grinding it out. Ernie did a wonderful job the last time he was a captain. He did a wonderful job turning the tide for that team, uniting in the past year. They're going to have folks from basically Japan, Korea, Australia, South Africa, a bunch of Canadians on that team, so kind of creating an atmosphere for them, a shield, a symbol, something that they can bond behind and unify, really.
That was carried on by Trevor and now Mike Weir, who is a good friend, and they haven't been real happy about their results. They're going to be gunning for us, and the Canadian crowd will create a lot of buzz. There's some good hockey fans up there.
I like to joke that what I really like about Montreal is they love their Habs, the Canadiens, and everything is red, white and blue up there. It looks really nice. They like to tell me it's actually blue, white and red; I go, hey, you see it the way you want to see it; I see red, white and blue.
THE MODERATOR: With that, we'll open it up to any questions anyone has for Jim.
Q. Outside of Ernie, do you have any other names that you'd care to share that you're pretty confident are going to be here, that are committed to you?
JIM FURYK: Yeah, I think you're going to have your local favorites in David Duval. I know Vijay is battling some injuries, but I expect Vijay to be here, Fred Funk, Steve Stricker is verbally committed, Darren Clarke, Retief Goosen, Miguel Angel Jiménez --
ADAM RENFROE: Jack Cambell making his debut.
JIM FURYK: Jack Campbell is making his debut, which is really nice. I saw he and his wife in Seattle, which is cool. Got some youth. It's great when you're 50 and everyone calls you young. Love that.
Q. I'm sure you're watching with interest as it pertains to the Presidents Cup how the American guys are doing this year. All of a sudden Xander has made Player of the Year race a little bit interesting with Scottie, and then Scottie comes back with the gold medal. I know that's not necessarily a PGA TOUR event, but I'm sure the guys are going to consider that when it comes in. Do you think the tiebreaker is going to be the FedExCup?
JIM FURYK: Could be. Could be. Yeah, especially if Xander went on to win the FedExCup, then I think it becomes a really difficult decision. But amazing the year that both of those guys have had is absolutely incredible.
I think Scottie had -- on July 1, I think Scottie had six wins that included a PLAYERS and a major championship, which is a career for some people. He did that in a half a year, if that makes sense. The level he's playing at is unprecedented.
It was funny, I heard they were talking about his putter. He's changed putters and he's kind of rolling the ball really well right now, and Xander was poking at him a little bit at a dinner, we really love that old putter you putted with. We like that one a lot better, giving him a hard time.
What's interesting is how well these young players, they grew up playing together in junior golf, college golf, they're playing the TOUR. As highly competitive as they are, I'm always amazed at how much they spend time together, how much they poke fun at each other. The folks from the PGA TOUR that were over in Paris with them said those four, the four Americans that were on the team, were inseparable. They said every practice round, the support they gave each other, the help they gave each other, hung out at night. He said it was absolutely amazing how much time they spent together.
As a captain, those are the things you want to hear. I'm beaming from ear to ear when I hear stuff like that.
Q. Jim, you had some injuries plaguing you for a little while. What's the state of all that? Are you 100 percent and ready to go after it?
JIM FURYK: No, I'm not 100 percent. I'm not sure I'm going to get to 100 percent. I'm feeling a little bit better. I'm not in any pain. My back is bothering me a little bit and I'm a little weak in my right side, my right hip. It's no secret I'm not playing well. If you look at my standing right now on the Champions Tour, I'm definitely not happy with the progression I've made in my game, but I'm working hard. I feel like it's not that far away. I've shown flashes of doing some good things. I have been grinding it out.
But I've been struggling with my game and trying to dig it out of the dirt a little bit. I feel like -- I always like to Joe, when we have time, with we get busy in our careers and our lives, I feel like Tabitha is at her best when we have time to do two or three tasks and she has about seven or eight to could, she's at her best. She loves to be busy. Right now I'm kind of in that same motion with the Presidents Cup, with our event, going back-to-back weeks. I've got two golf course design projects going and I'm trying to play full time on the Champions Tour.
Time management has never been my best skill, I'll say that. I'm really good at wasting hours. But it's been a lot of fun. We've been really busy, and I think it's been good for us. We have two kids that aren't living at home full time right now. Our daughter is in Nashville working, and our son is in school, in college in Tennessee.
It's good that I think we've kept ourselves busy and together, and we have these projects together that's amazing that I can do it with her.
THE MODERATOR: With that, we'll conclude the panel discussion.
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