By Ryan Herrington
Greg McLaughlin, a golf industry veteran most recently in charge of the PGA Tour Champions, has been tapped to oversee a trio of the game’s key stakeholders. On Wednesday, he was named World Golf Foundation CEO and president of The First Tee in a consolidated position that will also include management of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

“We are thrilled to welcome Greg to this important new role,” said Jay Monahan, World Golf Foundation chairman and PGA Tour commissioner, in a press release. “I’m not sure we could have asked for a more qualified, passionate leader, considering his deep level of experience and executive leadership success within the golf world and beyond.”

McLaughlin had been in charge of the PGA Tour Champions since 2015 after spending 14 years at the helm of the Tiger Woods Foundation. Prior to that, he had been involved in running the PGA Tour’s Genesis Open, Honda Classic and BMW Championship.

Monahan said that McLaughlin’s experiences in sports, business and non-for-profit endeavours will help him further the WGF’s mission and build upon the vision of The First Tee as the restructured organizations work more closely together.

“As a member of the greater golf community for more than 30 years, I have always been proud of what the collective efforts of our sport have done and continue to do to inspire communities and change lives, especially for young people who can learn and grow through the values of golf,” McLaughlin said. “This is an exciting time in the evolution of the World Golf Foundation and, specifically, The First Tee, and I am humbled by and excited for the opportunity to lead our industry’s efforts to increase participation and global awareness of golf as a sport that is welcoming to all.”

McLaughlin inherits the position at The First Tee after Keith Dawkins stepped down as CEO in October only a year after taking over for long-time chief Joe Barrow.

Before retiring in 2019, Steve Mona, WGF CEO for the past 10 years, will help McLaughlin in the transition, serving as executive director of WE ARE GOLF, the industry-wide coalition in place to lobby for the game in Washington, D.C.

Jack Peter, president of the World Golf Hall of Fame, who has been in St. Augustine, Fla., since 2001, is set to retire at the end of this year. Assisting McLaughlin in the day-to-day operations of the Hall of Fame will be Brodie Waters, the WGHOF vice president of business affairs.

Miller Brady, a 19-year veteran of the PGA Tour, will take over McLaughlin’s responsibilities with the PGA Tour Champions. Most recently he worked with McLaughlin as the senior VP and chief of operations for the tour.

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For the fourth time since 2000, the World Golf Foundation has commissioned the U.S. Golf Economy Report, the latest numbers covering 2016. The report summarizes that the sport drove $84.1 billion in economic activity across the U.S., a 22.1-percent increase from the $68.8 billion seen in 2011, the year of the last report.

When golf’s total economic impact is calculated, the report touts an even more grandiose number, with the industry supporting $191.9 billion in output.

Steve Mona, CEO of the World Golf Foundation CEO, says this fresh data will help him and the rest of the nearly 200-person “We Are Golf” coalition descending on the nation’s capital advocate for golf’s needs during meetings on Wednesday with members of Congress and other governmental agencies.

“It helps us to legitimize golf as a sport and an industry,” Mona said. “I think some people still perceive it to some degree as a cottage industry or a pastime for a certain element of society. But that perception doesn’t match with reality, and it’s our job to help, for lack of a better term, to unwind that perception.”

In getting to the $84.1 billion number, the new report explores core golf facility metrics (operations, capital investments); revenues of professional golf tournaments, associations and player endorsements; charitable events; golf real estate value; and golf tourism. In every top-level segment, save for new-course construction, the industry saw economic gains in 2016 versus 2011.

Most notably, according to Mona, overall revenues from golf facility operations were up to $34.4 billion, a 2.9 percent increase from 2011 that comes despite a net decrease in facilities of 737 and the overall number of golfers in the U.S. remaining at 24 million.

“What it tells me is of the facilities that remain, they’re doing pretty well,” Mona said. “That’s not 100 percent across the board, but as a general rule, the ones that remain are in a better position as time goes on.”

The report calculates that the game employs 1.89 million people in the U.S. and pays them $58.7 billion in wages and benefits.

Interestingly, golf real estate was a segment that saw the largest-percentage gains from 2011, with new home construction measuring a financial uptick of 18.5 percent, sitting at $7.2 billion in 2016 versus $3.4 billion five years earlier. The current number is still below the $8.4 billion seen when the first U.S. Golf Economy Report was done in 2000 and below the high of $11.6 billion in 2005, but suggests a move in the positive direction.

Additionally, golf tourism saw an increased economic impact of $25.7 billion, up 4.6 percent from $20.5 billion in 2011 and nearly double the $13.4 billion from 2000.

Still to come in May will be the National Golf Foundation’s annual participation report, accounting for the number of golfers in the U.S. and play on-course and off-course, where participation is expected to see increases with the continued interest in Topgolf, Drive Shack and other “entertainment” venues.

Besides the rosy financials, Mona says industry leaders will use this year’s National Golf Day to once again lobby on golf’s behalf regarding a handful of legislative issues. Among them is the continued efforts to separate golf from other less savory industries (massage parlors, hot-tub facilities, tanning salons) that frequently are lumped together and often collectively denied funding when disaster relief bills are broad to votes.

Additionally, they’ll be discussing the negative impact golf faces from a change in how businesses can deduct entertainment expenses. In a late revision prior to Congress’ passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December, and despite 11th hour lobbying efforts from the golf industry, a 50-percent tax deduction for most types of client-entertainment expenses was eliminated. The intent is to explain the large-scale negative impact this will have on the golf industry in hopes that revisions or exceptions can be made for the sport in the future.

Toward this argument, the We Are Golf contingent can use the numbers from the Golf Economy Report to directly show how much revenue the industry generates and how this could be muted if businesses reduce their investment in the game because of the new tax law. In that sense, the new report’s timing couldn’t be more perfect.

Says Mona: “It’s very significant to have this report and be able to use it in the best sense of the word.”

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