The Valero Texas Open, one of professional golf’s oldest tournaments with the greatest charitable impact on the PGA Tour, is having a very good November, even though the event is played in April at the TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course.
Two recent headlines in the golf world that will be news to people who do not follow the sport closely are worth noting simply because of the positive impact they could have on professional sports events in San Antonio and the related charitable impact on this and other Texas communities.
Valero Energy Executive Chairman Joe Gorder was appointed to fill the vacant independent director seat on the PGA Tour Policy Board, the sport’s 12-person governing board, earlier this month, replacing Randall Stephenson, the former ATT chairman and CEO who stepped down in July. Stephenson expressed misgivings about the tour’s proposed partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) at a time when the regime there has been widely condemned for its poor human rights record and its treatment of women.
Stephenson and others on the board were left in the dark about negotiations between the tour and the Saudis until a “framework deal” was announced in June. Since then, there has been little visible progress on combining the Saudi-based upstart LIV Golf tour with the PGA Tour. The tour board is currently considering alternative investment partners.
The PGA Tour responded to the Saudi-led breakaway tour, which lured away some top players with signing bonuses and income guarantees said to exceed $100 million, by reorganizing its annual schedule and elevating 12 “designated events” that feature significantly larger money purses and also require the participation of the tour’s top-ranked players.
Gorder’s presence on the tour’s policy board as it weighs its future options can only help the standing of the Valero Texas Open, which is not a designated event even though it is played one week before The Masters at Augusta National Golf Club, one of the sport’s four annual major tournaments.
Gorder was unanimously approved by the board after he was nominated by the board’s Independent Director Selection Committee — a committee consisting of tour players Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson — and the two other independent directors, venture capitalist Mary Meeker and Mark Flaherty, a Goldman Sachs director.
McIlroy, the most outspoken PGA Tour player serving on the policy board, announced shortly after Gorder’s appointment that he was stepping down from his position to focus on his game, family and growing business ventures. Speculation about who would replace him ended last week when PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced that 2021 Texas Open winner and three-time major champion Jordan Spieth, a Dallas native, had accepted the invitation.
With some exceptions, the tournaments that did not make the coveted “designated event” list have suffered by exclusion, attracting fewer top players in their fields, featuring lower purses, drawing fewer spectators and earning lower television ratings.
The PGA Tour, more than any other professional sport, highlights the charitable impact of its tournaments, and for more than a few years, no tournament has surpassed the Texas Open for total charitable dollars raised and distributed by Valero in the various markets it serves. This year’s tournament raised a record $23 million, bringing the grand total to $232 million in charitable fundraising since Valero became the title sponsor in 2002. The Texas Open also occupies an important and unique space in the history of professional golf, a story well told by Texas golf writer Kevin Robbins, in his book It’s Been a Journey, published in 2021 to commemorate the tournament’s 100th anniversary.
You do not have to be a golf fan to appreciate the impact that the birth of the Texas Open had on San Antonio tourism, an industry as old as its Spanish colonial missions and the 1836 Battle of the Alamo.
Jack O’Brien, the enterprising sports editor at the San Antonio Evening News, came up with the novel idea of using a golf tournament to boost the city’s winter visitor economy. Until the birth of the Texas Open at Brackenridge Golf Club in 1921, most professional golf tournaments were played in the Northeast and upper Midwest. The lure of a record money purse and the southern hospitality the players experienced gave birth to the sport’s winter tour, which now extends from Hawaii to California, Arizona, Texas and Florida.
In sum, the Texas Open deserves to be recognized by the tour and its top players as an important part of the sport’s history and traditions, and for its leading charitable impact.
Gorder and Spieth will have to wrestle with larger issues, notably the future structure of the PGA Tour, who it partners with, and how the sport evolves. But there ought to be a payoff for having the two representatives from Texas on the PGA Tour board in the way of enhanced appreciation of the Texas Open. That payoff might come at a cost. The Sports Business Journal reported last week that Monahan and other PGA Tour executives want local tournament sponsors to start contributing to richer player purses starting in 2025.
That would be a major change since Valero and other corporate tournament sponsors around the country operate the events under 501(c)(3) organizations with all proceeds after expenses going to charity. The tour funds the player purses through the sale of broadcast rights and other revenue. Any such change could impact the amount of money flowing to charities.
The Texas Open in San Antonio has had a rich history, and today stands as the city’s oldest professional sporting event. Since 2002, it has grown robustly under Valero’s title sponsorship. It deserves a secure future. Gorder and Spieth joining the board can only help.
