Lee Smith, Executive Director, THE PLAYERS Championship
Lee Smith, the executive director of THE PLAYERS Championship, spoke to Invest: about THE PLAYERS Championship and the growing interest in golf across Northeast Florida. “We want to continue to diversify our audience and make sure that people understand that you don’t have to play golf well to come and watch our tournament and participate,” he said.
What have been some of the main highlights and key milestones for THE PLAYERS Championship over the last 12 months?
We celebrated our 50th anniversary at THE PLAYERS Championship in 2024. In the ecosystem that we live in, 50 years may not be all that old, but inside of that 50 years, there were a lot of defining moments, a lot of milestones, a lot of history and stories for us to tell. We were able to do this in and around our tournament in March.
Another big milestone for us was that we had our first sold-out Saturday, which, for an event of this magnitude, to have a max capacity sellout really shows the support and the interest and the momentum that our event has in and around Northeast Florida. It was a great celebration of the community.
How do you attract the best talent in golf to THE PLAYERS Championship?
We’re fortunate at THE PLAYERS Championship to, No. 1, have earned a fantastic reputation of putting on a high-level experience for our players, their caddies, their support teams, and their families, so players want to be here. The second part is how we get the field that we attract. We feel it is excellent that our players earn their way here. They’re not given a spot in the tournament. Our 144-player field is a meritocracy and every one of those players earns their way to play. The third part is that players always love to play on challenging and iconic venues. We’re fortunate to have TPC Sawgrass, which is an excellent golf course that is an exciting one to play and has the most famous hole in golf: the island green No. 17. You put all those things together and it’s a great recipe that makes our competitors really want to be here.
To what extent does working with upcoming young names and talent help to achieve your business and operational goals for the overall success of the tournament?
It’s always great that superstars are leading our game because they make people want to come out and watch, either at the tournament or on television, but the future superstars are the ones who are competing on the weekend. Maybe you haven’t heard of them yet, but then you keep watching them and they provide excitement and they provide a new name and a new person to follow. That rotation and fresh new talent comes from not only the developmental tours that are around the PGA TOUR, but from PGA TOUR University as well. Our Junior Players series always provides excitement for the next level guys like Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Akshay Bhatia, and Scottie Scheffler. They are superstars in our game now, but they played in the Junior Players before they ever got to the top.
What is the impact of THE PLAYERS Championship and also of the overall golfing industry on the regional economy, and to what extent does it help attract business activity?
I’ll start with golf as a whole. The industry was shrinking in 2018. Fewer players were playing the game, fewer golf courses were opening, some were even closing. But then COVID came and changed the dynamics of the equation, ushering in the Golden Era in which we now find ourselves. An interesting statistic is that we actually have more golf courses in the United States than McDonald’s locations, so we have well over 120 million people who are engaged in the game of golf every year, whether they watch it on TV, play it on a golf course, listen to a podcast, whatever it may be. Almost half the population in the United States is engaged in the game of golf in some way, shape, or form.
At THE PLAYERS Championship, we see that and certainly enjoy that momentum of a much more diverse audience than there was even 10 years ago. And we intentionally build our program throughout the seven to 10 days that we activate around a diverse audience. We love the core golfer who wants to come out and watch the game of golf, but, at the same time, we attract 24 local Jacksonville restaurants to our golf course during the week of the tournament. We make a significant charitable contribution at each event. Every ticket that’s purchased, every sandwich that’s purchased, every hat that’s purchased, every hospitality venue that’s booked is part of a cycle that enables us to turn right back around and contribute. Over the years of the tournament, over $120 million has gone back into Northeast Florida, and over 300 organizations here in Northeast Florida have felt our influence. That is something we’re really, really proud of. Overall, holistically, our last study was that the Players Championship contributed $234 million to the local economy.
What growth opportunities and what room for expansion do you see for your organization?
For THE PLAYERS Championship, growth is in our DNA and something that we’re working on from year to year. We want to continue to diversify our audience and make sure that people understand that you don’t have to play golf well to come and watch our tournament and participate. We want to continue to get the message out that this is a great platform for seven-plus days throughout March for our local businesses to entertain clients and see it as an opportunity for retention. We think that’s super-important.
Another thing that we want to continue to do is expand the week of the tournament. One of the things that has really gained some momentum, especially in the local community, is our opening weekend. Our opening weekend begins on Friday and rolls about six hours each day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
We have interactive experiences on opening weekend where you can visit a golf shop. We have our 40,000-square-foot fan shop that is open for opening weekend, which allows people to get the first look at apparel, purchase it, and then wear it the week of the tournament. It’s something that we really look forward to expanding by possibly adding musical acts or more family activities because we think that that’s a great opportunity for our local community to come and visit the players.
