Charity, relationship, and expanding the video game of golf.
Those are words that explain today’s Hilton Grand Vacations Competition of Champions, the season-opening occasion on the LPGA Excursion
Lake Nona Golf and Nation Club in Orlando, Florida, will certainly hold the event for a 3rd straight period, as this special occasion is commemorating its 10th wedding anniversary on the whole.
A-list celebs will certainly take part along with the very best women gamers worldwide to increase millions for kids’s charities within the Orlando and Central Florida areas.
” The star market draws in the typical individual that intends to appear that might not always be a diehard golf follower, yet with a varied area of celebs from sporting activities, enjoyment, and songs, you can sort of capture a much bigger target market that will certainly appear and sustain these occasions,” stated Mike Flaskey, the creator of this event and previous chief executive officer of Ruby Resorts, in an unique meeting with Playing With
Flaskey additionally started the Payne Stewart Invitational, which increased $140,000 at its inaugural occasion in December. He began the Invited Star Standard too, a comparable occasion kept in Dallas annually on the Champions Excursion
This year’s Hilton Grand Vacations Competition of Champions includes 36 LPGA celebrities that won in 2023 and loads of home star names.
Ray Allen, Brian Baumgartner, Roger Clemens, Landon Donovan, Urban Meyer, Emmitt Smith, and Brian Urlacher, to name a few, are done in this year’s area.
Protecting champ Mardy Fish, among the leading American tennis gamers throughout the 2000s, will certainly additionally tee it up today at Lake Nona.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25228985/1366489469.jpg)
So, also, will certainly Annika Sorenstam, a 10-time significant champ on the LPGA Trip.
Sorenstam and her household live at Lake Nona, and considering that she is buddies with Flaskey, she contends in the star department yearly.
” What relocated this occasion to the following degree was revealing that Annika would certainly contend in the star department of the occasion,” Flaskey discussed.
” I believe that actually made the occasion unique, as she is the best of perpetuity.”
Undoubtedly, Sorenstam’s visibility boosts the reputation of the LPGA’s season-opening occasion.
Yet so does Flaskey’s– along with Hilton Grand Vacations.
3 years back, Flaskey marketed Ruby Resorts to Hilton Grand Vacations. Yet Flaskey wished to make certain that his event would certainly remain to prosper in the future.
” I understand that this is my labor of love due to the philanthropic element of it and since I enjoy the LPGA, and it was the initial event I ever before produced,” Flaskey outlined.
” And I really did not intend to vanish as a component of this sale … So, I had the ability to most likely to the Hilton Grand Vacations Chief Executive Officer Mark Wang and claim, ‘Look, Mark, we have the choice to relocate the event from the 4 Seasons [Golf Club] to Lake Nona, where the Hilton brand name would certainly not be endangered in collaboration whatsoever with the 4 periods or the other way around.'”
Before that conference, Flaskey took a seat with Joe Lewis, the British financier and bulk proprietor of Tottenham Hotspur.
Flaskey and Lewis made a handshake contract to relocate the occasion to Lake Nona once the deal shut. Lewis possesses Lake Nona, which, in addition to the golf links, is a 17-mile neighborhood near Orlando’s airport terminal.
The sale was wrapped up, and Lewis accepted host Flaskey’s occasion at Lake Nona, protecting the event’s future. It additionally ensured that Hilton’s brand name would certainly not be endangered at the 4 Seasons Golf Club.
” It indicates the globe to me that the Chief Executive Officer of Hilton Grand Vacations has actually welcomed this occasion,” Flaskey stated.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25229034/1240160596.jpg)
“[Wang] right away increased the handbag by a number of $100,000 when they took the occasion over, and he has actually actually made this the North Celebrity experience– and the occasion of the year for Hilton Grand Vacations … I’m recognized that he permits me to remain to play in the event and contend in the star department.”
This year’s event includes an overall handbag of $1.75 million, a remarkable number for an LPGA occasion with only 36 gamers. In 2015’s occasion had a $1.5 million handbag. In 2021, the in 2015 Ruby Resorts had its name affixed to this event, the handbag was $1.2 million.
Rose Zhang, Lilia Vu, Nelly Korda, and Leona Maguire are several of the large LPGA celebrities in this week’s minimal area. Brooke Henderson gets here as the safeguarding champ.
” I am anticipating seeing the leaders of the LPGA,” Flaskey stated.
” We are anticipating commemorating females’s golf and remaining to relocate the needle for the girls and the LPGA and remain to press to assist that excursion, do the important things that they intend to do. Yet it’s been difficult for them, you understand? The tv item of it on network television has actually not been as mainstream as the guys’s excursion.”
The LPGA has actually battled to gather the focus that the guys’s video game has actually gotten over the last few years, regardless of the video game’s rapid development in appeal considering that the pandemic.
And yet, Flaskey has actually made it a concern for his event to air on network tv annually.
NBC will certainly transmit Saturday’s third-round from 3 to 5 p.m. ET, a remarkable time port for any kind of LPGA event.
Golf Network will certainly additionally broadcast the initial, 2nd, and last rounds for 3 hours every day– from 1 to 4 p.m. ET. Golf Network additionally has an hour of third-round protection from 2 to 3 p.m. ET.
Yet considering that the NFL controls American tv, NBC has no option yet to broadcast the NFL’s local playoff competition in between the Detroit Lions and the Tampa Fl Bay Buccaneers on Sunday mid-day. Therefore, NBC will certainly broadcast real-time protection on only Saturday as opposed to both Saturday and Sunday.
” It’s tough on the marketing and sponsorship side for the LPGA,” Flaskey stated.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25229165/1085692566.jpg)
” That’s why firms like Hilton Grand Vacations and Ruby Resorts must support this LPGA brand name and assistance remain to take them north since if you comprehend what’s taking place there and what they’re doing, these professional athletes are unbelievable professional athletes, yet more vital than that, is that they care, ideal?”
Undoubtedly, LPGA celebrities care significantly concerning their followers, components, and kids thinking about the video game. Lexi Thompson’s visibility at the PGA Trip’s Shriners Kid’s Open last October is an excellent instance of this.
” By PGA Trip criteria, by LIV Golf criteria, [LPGA stars] are not affluent,” Flaskey discussed.
” Yet it is so outstanding for them to find out and have the ability to contend and dip into the degree that they dip into. At the very same time, [it’s amazing for them to] provide as long as they produce the training course to the enrollers, the followers, and the pro-am gamers. I believe it is amazing, and I believe it’s something that a great deal of individuals do not learn about.”
The LPGA is a remarkable company with a lot ability, yet the circuit does not gather the focus of the typical sporting activities follower.
Sure, diehard golf followers will certainly tune right into the greatest LPGA occasions of the period. Yet this is why Flaskey desired celebs to contend in a marquee LPGA occasion. Those home names assist bring eyeballs and focus to the females’s video game.
Even more focus produces extra earnings for the gamers.
This would certainly not be feasible without Flaskey and Wang. The LPGA’s Competition of Champions would certainly not have this yearly success, neither would certainly it have the ability to expand the females’s video game and assistance countless kids in South Florida, without their management and vision.
Arrival Kid’s Healthcare facility, Florida Healthcare Facility for Kid, and the College of Florida Shan’s Kid’s Healthcare facility have actually all been crucial recipients of this occasion, yet so, also has the females’s video game all at once.
The LPGA is worthy of even more focus, yet its concern as it starts the 2024 period is increasing cash for those much less lucky.
That is rather unique, and it speaks with the relevance of not just raising the very best women gamers worldwide yet additionally utilizing golf to plant seeds of concern.
Jack Milko is a golf team author for SB Country’s Playing With. Make sure to look into @_PlayingThrough for even more golf protection. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko too.