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PGA TOUR MEDIA CONFERENCEJuly 7, 2011Joe Louis Barrow, Jr.Tim FinchemMARK WILLIAMS: We would like to welcome you to this teleconference and our participants, PGA TOUR Commissioner Mr. Tim Finchem, First Tee CEO Mr. Joe Barrow and campaign co-chair Mr. Jim McGlothlin. We'll ask the Commissioner to give us the brief basic notes of the announcement earlier, and we'll open up for questions. COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I'll just briefly comment about the press announcement we made earlier, and we are happy that you are joining us and be happy to try to answer your questions between myself, Joe and Jim. This morning we announced a new campaign to raise the necessary capital to underpin the next phase of First Tee, and as we talk about The First Tee, going back to 1997 and its inception, with George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush became honorary chair, in those 14 years, over 4.7 million young people have been reached with the program in all 50 states, 4,200 schools with The First Tee in School Program and over 750 programs are active. And because of the measuring of what the impact of that program has been over those years, not just in terms of the numbers of young people but the impact on those young people and their lives to the teaching of core values and obviously the growing interest they have in the game of golf itself, The First Tee has developed significant credibility and a good history and track record, and as a consequence, Joe Barrow and his team have put together a plan to reach 10 million new young people between now and 2017. To underpin that, today we announced a campaign to raise those funds, the Campaign for 10 Million Young People, which will be an effort to raise what we envision in the $100 million range between now and October of 2012, and thereafter, the basic program will culminate here at Pebble Beach on October 8 in 2012. There will be a number of events between now and then. There will be a number of levels of the campaign starting with our trustee level during that period of time, and those events will culminate here in Pebble Beach in October of 2012. Also, events at the grass roots level will be incorporated and those announcements will be made over time. We felt it was important to make this announcement here at Pebble Beach, because we are during the week of the Nature Valley First Tee Open on the Champions Tour, No. 1. No. 2, the Monterey Peninsula, which hosts the AT&T National Pro-Am here in February has been a major supporter of The First Tee over the years and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to support one of the best First Tee Programs in the country. And third, we'll be culminating the major effort here next year. We feel like the relationship between The First Tee and Pebble Beach is very special, and we want to continue to grow that relationship as it relates to The First Tee in the years to come. This effort is going to take a lot of work, and we also announced this morning that Jim McGlothlin who has been a long-time member of the board of trustees of The First Tee, as well as a director on the PGA TOUR Properties Board for a good number of years, had great success last year in a school in Virginia with the help of Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer raising over $15 million in one day and who actually forwarded the idea of taking that concept onto a national level to do what's necessary to take The First Tee in the direction of its potential from a reach standpoint, that concept could work. And consequently, Jim agreed to provide leadership to this effort beginning today. We were joined by a good number of First Tee members, First Tee young people today, and we look forward to watching The First Tee young people paired with these great Champions Tour players this weekend. So that, in essence, was our announcement. I'm assuming all of you on the phone have received a press release, as well, and Joe, myself and Jim would be happy to try to answer any of your questions. Q. You mentioned something beginning here in Pebble Beach in October of 2012, can you talk more about that? COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Well, the details are being pulled together but we'll have a major event here at Pebble Beach Golf Links on Tuesday the 8th, which will pull together and be the culminating factor of the major donor level of this campaign. We envision a Pro-Am involving some of the best men and women players globally and in the United States, and we'll do some things around that that will communicate what The First Tee is all about, and what the campaign is doing and there will be other things going on around the country that will tie into that. And there will be some television elements, but we'll provide more detail of that later in the year. Q. Watching this tournament, it becomes pretty evident why The First Tee is so special, so successful, but can you talk about why the PGA TOUR has such an interest in wanting to form this partnership for the next five years with this big goal? COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Our interest is really on two levels. One level is we are very interested in what the professional game and the game of golf generally looks like. We want it to look like the rest of America and the rest of the world. That means diversity, and we are a major supporter of the effort to make golf accessible to young people who historically have not had access to it. That's an important thing for golf. On the other hand, the PGA TOUR is an organization that is absolutely committed to charitable causes. 100 percent of the net revenue of all of our golf tournaments around the country, of which there are over 100 on the Champions Tour, Nationwide Tour and PGA TOUR; 100 percent of those proceeds go to charities. And the extent to which the First Tee impacts the lives of kids through the communication of core values is important to that role, as well. So we are equally focused on it at both levels, and committed to it for those reasons. JOE BARROW: I would like to add that we are very excited about the field of participants here at the Nature Valley First Tee Open. Some 53 percent of the participants are from a diverse background, and 36 percent of girls. So in terms of our effort to expose the game and entice these young people to play at the highest levels, we are very pleased with the progression over the years. As Tim suggested, it is about broadening the game and exposing it to many young people who otherwise would not have access. We have done so very successfully and now they are playing. Q. I was wondering if you could clarify, the money that's being raised, is this going into general operational funds or is it earmarked for specific initiatives? JOE BARROW: The funds will be earmarked for various specific initiatives over the course of the years once it's all raised and we have it together. We want to incent our chapters to increase their donors; one concept is through a challenge grant we are going to provide. We are also over phase four going to expand to an additional platform in addition to the 750 locations of golf and the 4,200 elementary schools, we want to grow the elementary school program to well over 10,000 elementary schools, and we are also going to develop a program called the nine core value golf program, which will then be implemented as the school program in other youth development organizations like Boys & Girls Clubs, YMCAs. We expect to provide incentives and grants to our chapters to expand their programs to those new organizations. There will be uses of the funds which will unfold to coincide and support the phase four business objectives. Q. Wonder if the expansion means that pros are going to get more involved? Will we visibly see these guys out here more? JOE BARROW: Well, over the years we are excited to say that we have had significant numbers of professionals who are very involved with our chapters. Some have helped them design some of their facilities early on. Some of them sit on the boards as directors and some of them do clinics within their communities. We expect the answer is, yes, as we expand the program and expand the platform that we will see more and more PGA and LPGA and Champions Tour touring professionals involved with the program. We are also excited to say that we have well over 500 or so PGA teaching professionals and LPGA teaching professionals who are coaches in our program. Over the careers we have enjoyed a wonderful level of support throughout the professional game, and they have made a significant difference in terms of our abilities to appropriately deliver a life skills curriculum. Professionals only teach the game of golf but they have really taken the time to be designated First Tee coaches. And one of the reasons for our success is the manner in which we share information with the young people, not just sharing information with them. So they are very sensitive and give positive reinforcements to our participants and that's why there's professionals involved with the program. Q. Can you see the First Tee as not only a way to introduce more people to the game but also a tool to develop potential PGA TOUR players? COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Yes. The pool of PGA TOUR players comes from the pool of young people that show an interest typically, and a very high percentage of tour players on both the LPGA and the PGA TOUR are individuals who started at a very young age. And the broader we can develop the pool of young people that are showing that interest, that can start to take the steps to prepare them for competition at this level, it will eventually lead to participation. I wouldn't say it's a driving priority. The two things I mentioned earlier are really the priorities. But it will certainly have that effect over the long term. It will be generational, but it is a very positive by-product of what we see the future of the First Tee being. JOE BARROW: I'm happy to report we did a survey with our chapters, and they reported some 9,000 of our participants are now playing high school golf because of their involvement with The First Tee, and another 1,700 or so now playing college golf. So we have been able to introduce them to the game and excite them about the game, and now many of them are taking it to the highest level and I suspect that some of those 1700 who are playing college golf have aspirations to play on the LPGA or PGA TOUR, and as Tim suggests it's just a matter of time with this generation. MARK WILLIAMS: We thank you all for your participation today and we appreciate this great initiative that you have taken on, and we thank you for participating once again. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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