Doing Good
PGA Tour Offers More Than Golf by Giving Back to Community
With weather allowing nearly year-round play, golf and metro Atlanta go together like peas and carrots. Alex Urban, executive director of the Tour Championship at PGA Tour, shared his 11-year career journey in the golf industry, the restoration of a historic golf course, as well as the importance of community engagement and charitable initiatives (such as the First Tee of metro Atlanta program) at the Peachtree Corners Business Association’s Business After Hours Speaker Series on July 25 at Hilton Atlanta Northeast.
“It is a busy time of the year for me,” said Urban referring to the PGA Tour Championship being held August 28 through September 1 at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
Urban has been with the PGA since 2013, starting out on the communications team.
“I went to about 50 tournaments in four years. It’s a very fun job for guy in his 20s,” he said, adding that now that he’s a husband and father, he’s happy spending more time at home. “It was a blast. I went to a bunch of really cool places, and I’ve always loved coming to Atlanta.”
Urban has an undergraduate degree from Clemson University in political science and a master’s from the University of Georgia in public relations. The PGA Tour is the only company that he’s ever worked for. With his parents retiring to Greenville, South Carolina from Ohio and his wife’s family in Melbourne, Florida, Atlanta turned out to be the right place to put down roots.
PGA and PGA Tour
If you don’t know a lot about golf and its many tournaments, tours, championships, etc., you might not realize what a major impact it has around the world. First of all, PGA Tour and PGA aren’t the same thing. PGA Tour is for professional golfers in North America. Originally established by the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA of America) in 1916, the PGA Tour became its own league in 1968. Its original name was the “Tournament Players Division,” but it eventually became PGA Tour in 1975.
The PGA Tour schedule runs from January through August with events in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe. The events take place at the same times and locations every year, ending with the championship in Atlanta.
“There are 47 events in the PGA Tour, but we have a tour central, like our minor leagues, called the Korn Ferry Tour. They have 30 tournaments. We have our PGA TOUR Champions. Of course, we also have the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, just a little bit north of here that they play at TPC Sugarloaf,” said Urban. “And so, all in all, there’s like 150 PGA tour events, if you include all those ancillary tours, so it’s quite a production.”
Area’s history with golf
“For those of you that don’t know it, East Lake is a historic golf club and home of the great first champion of golf — Bobby Jones,” said Urban. “He founded the Masters Tournament. He was very big in the 1920s and 1930s when amateur golf was really the pinnacle of the game — right before professional golf took over.”
At the time, Jones was enjoying ticker tape parades in New York City for winning the Open Championship. His origin story began in Atlanta at East Lake where he grew up learning how to play the game of golf. But as with most things, a golf course needs revitalization, even if it’s rooted in history.
“It has undergone a restoration this year,” said Urban. “So, once the last putt dropped from the tournament last year, they have basically replaced every blade of grass, every bunker, every green, to try to reach the goal of reverting it back to the old design features from the early 1900s.”
Updates and restorations
He added that a lot of golf courses are going through this right now. According to NBC Sports, Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, Medinah Country Club in Illinois, Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California and Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Oklahoma are among the top courses that are getting facelifts.
Urban said some of the changes are undulations in greens.
“There was a period in the 1980s and 1990s that was really, really obsessed with really fast greens. And the problem with really fast greens is that you can’t make them too slow, because the ball just rolls off the green,” he said. “So, you have to make them flat enough that the ball can actually stand still.”
He added that the fairways are now a little bit wider than they were in the past — making them a little less rough.
“The bunkering is different. It’s a little deeper. It certainly looks different,” he added. “What they’ve done is tried to match the design and the restoration work back to a photograph from 1949. The greens seem a lot larger. They’re a little bit more asymmetrical.”
Giving back to community
As much as metro Atlanta has given to golf, the PGA Tour wants to give back to this area.
“Volunteerism and giving back to the community is a huge part of what is central to the PGA Tour and what we do with the Tour Championship,” said Urban. “There’s not one that better exemplifies that than the Tour Championship and the relationship it has with the East Lake community and the Atlanta community as a whole.”
A prize of $25 million to the winner is a big draw for golf’s heavy hitters like Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spaeth and Justin Thomas. But this culmination of the tour season would be nothing without the people behind the scenes who make it possible, Urban pointed out. And with an event this massive, many of those people do it for no money — just the love of the game, the pride of the city and the chance to do good.
Event volunteers
“We have 1,300 to 1,500 volunteers in any given year that help out during the tournament in all kinds of capacities,” he said. “We have people that hold their hands up to make sure that nobody is talking during back swings, to people who never see the golf course.”
Those are the ones that are helping with deliveries at the tournament office and guiding parking and things like that. There is also a need for hospitality talent management and groups to help with a computer system called ShotLink that plots all the shots on the course.
“Parking is one of our biggest challenges. We don’t have the luxury of big fields where we can park people right next to a golf course. We’re in a neighborhood. And we try not to be as disruptive as possible,” Urban said. “But even with all that, tournament week is my favorite week of the year. It is a stressful week, but we love what we do.”
Beyond the tournament
Beyond the tournament, however, is the impact on the community. The Tour Championship, like many golf tournaments, operates as non-profit charitable organization that is required to donate the profit it makes over expenses.
“So, in 2023 our last year’s tournament was a record year and we gave $6.96 million back to charities in the Atlanta area,” he said. “Most notably, the East Lake Foundation gets the majority of our dollars.”
Since 1999, that amount has been more than $54 million.
“That’s something that I think separates golf from other sporting properties and organizations; golf is a vehicle for charitable donations,” Urban said. “If you want to raise money for your organization, you almost always throw a golf tournament.”
A PGA tournament is kind of a larger version of that.
“We just sell a lot more tickets. And we sell more hospitality and have the best players in the world,” he said. “Ultimately, when you’re supporting the tournament through hospitality tickets or buying tickets, you’re supporting your community.”
And a lot of the money goes to the community near the golf course.
“East Lake was once one of the worst ZIP codes in the state in terms of crime, in terms of education,” he said. “Mr. Tom Cousins bought the golf course and wanted to use it as a vehicle to help raise money to help revitalize the community.”
Through the East Lake Foundation, the PGA Tour has helped to generate funds that have gone towards affordable housing, education initiatives and other worthwhile endeavors.
First Tee of metro Atlanta
Another noteworthy charity is First Tee of metro Atlanta.
“It teaches life skills to kids through the game of golf. It’s not necessarily meant to teach kids how to play golf, but some become quite good and get college scholarships,” said Urban. “There are First Tee kids now that are PGA Tour players.”
“First Tee teaches young ones that golf is a sport where you call your own penalties on yourself and you have to learn how to manage it. Children are taught how to manage anger and things like that,” he added.
“Being a part of the Atlanta community is really, really important to us. We’re still trying to spread the message about what we do from a community engagement standpoint and from a charitable aspect because I think that’s something that sports don’t necessarily do,” said Urban. “I think it separates us and, like I said, when you’re buying tickets to our event, you’re supporting the revitalization of East Lake, but now other communities and the First Tee and things like that as well.”
Peachtree Corners resident, Alex Everett traveled to Italy this past September — not as a tourist but as an athlete. The 28-year-old accountant and liver transplant survivor, served as goalkeeper on Team USA as they competed in the first-ever Transplant Football World Cup.
The event — part of the larger World Transplant Games — promoted giving the gift of life through a week of connection and sportsmanship, showcasing how people with organ transplants can live a normal, active life.
“I first heard about the US Transplant World Cup team a few years ago through a social media post,” said Alex. “The first Transplant World Cup was originally going to take place in 2022 but was postponed due to the uncertainty around international travel and COVID. Fast forward to 2024 and Team USA had an interest meeting via Zoom to discuss details about the tournament and fielding the American team.”
Team USA
All together, they had 14 people from around the United States (hailing from Georgia, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, California and Hawaii) join the team, which traveled to Cervia, Italy in September to compete.
“There were 10 other countries that were represented in the World Cup, and we were split into two groups, one of five and one of six,” Alex explained.
“It was an incredible experience representing the US at an international level, competing against other transplant recipients from around the world. We not only were able to share our passion for soccer but also our stories of transplantation and what obstacles we had to overcome to be where we were.”
Coming together to compete
Team USA played well in their matches but placed 9th out of the 11 teams. Because players came from all over the country to join the team, they hadn’t had the opportunity to practice together — or even meet in person — before the tournament started.
“The first time we met face to face and kick a ball as a team was our first game against France,” said Alex. “While that outcome was not what we wanted, we progressively got better as the tournament went on. Eventually ending with a win in a penalty shoot-out against Wales and a normal time win in our final game against Northern Ireland.”
“It was an incredible experience, and I would highly recommend anyone who’s involved with transplantation to reach out and get involved with not only Team USA but also with the Transplant Games of America (TGA), which is an Olympic-style competition for people who have received transplants or living donors,” he added.
Most states in the US have their own TGA team, including one here in Georgia.
World Transplant Games 2025
The next World Transplant Games will be held in Dresden, Germany on August 17-24, 2025.
Over six days, athletes and teams from 60 countries will meet to compete in 17 different sports. The US Team is excited to be part of it again and are currently looking for more players interested in taking part.
Leave a lasting legacy
Alex is also involved with the Peachtree Corners-based organization LifeLink® of Georgia, a division of the LifeLink® Foundation.
Established over 40 years ago, the foundation’s mission is to inspire new organ donor registrations and celebrate those who have decided to save lives as a registered organ, eye or tissue donor. The mission is carried out locally through education programs and community awareness campaigns.
Earlier this year, LifeLink of Georgia launched The Infinity Campaign, a state-wide educational effort aimed at motivating and registering new organ donors. The campaign is represented by the infinity symbol, to demonstrate the lasting impact of organ and tissue donation.
About LifeLink of Georgia
LifeLink of Georgia partners with hospitals to support and guide families as they establish their loved one’s legacy through organ and tissue donation.
They carry out the decisions of registered donors or their families and honor the life of each donor by providing organs and tissue for transplant to as many patients as possible.
In 2023, 457 men, women and children gifted a legacy of life through organ donation with LifeLink of Georgia, yet there are still nearly 3,000 patients in the state awaiting an organ transplant and thousands more that could benefit from tissue transplantation.
“When you become an organ donor, your life story continues through the lives you save, ensuring that your legacy lives on indefinitely,” says Katie Payne, executive director, LifeLink of Georgia. “Life is an invaluable treasure, a lesson we learn anew each day from our donor families. Thanks to their generosity, LifeLink of Georgia saves thousands of lives every year, and we are deeply honored to continue this extraordinary mission.”
The Infinity Campaign
The Infinity Campaign features a series of real stories from registered donors, each telling what inspired them to register and emphasizing the effect this decision has on saving lives. By sharing these stories, LifeLink aims to motivate more people to register as organ, eye and tissue donors and spread the message of hope and life.
“The decision to become a donor was deeply personal. It is an opportunity to give the ultimate gift — the gift of life,” said Adán Bean. “I get to continue to tell the story for others, be a little bit of ink in their pen and help them write what they want to write.”
As part of the launch, LifeLink has created the website mystorycontinues.com, which spotlights stories from donors and recipients and offers innovative tools, including the opportunity to upload a photo to share your support and spread the word on social media about the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation.
Become a donor
Being a donor is an incredible way for individuals to make a difference and have an impact on the lives of others. One organ, eye and tissue donor can potentially save or improve the lives of more than 75 people.
The need for organ and tissue donors is greater now than ever, given the growing numbers of people on transplant wait lists and increasing numbers of people with diabetes and kidney disease.
Currently, there are about 3,000 people in Georgia on the organ transplant list and thousands more on the tissue transplant list.
There are several simple ways to register your decision to be an organ, eye and tissue donor:
- Visit mystorycontinues.com and sign up today.
- Register when renewing or receiving a driver’s license or identification card at the Georgia Department of Driver Services.
- Register when obtaining a hunting or fishing license through the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
For more about LifeLink of Georgia, visit lifelinkfoundation.org/our-story/#llgeorgia.
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) awarded a check for $3,500 to Neighborhood Cooperative Ministries (NCM) at their November Business After Hours networking event.
NCM was chosen by PCBA’s Outreach Committee to be a recipient of the charitable donation because of their continued commitment to providing physical, financial and spiritual assistance to those in need within the community.
Neighborhood Cooperative Ministries
Neighborhood Cooperative Ministries provides food and clothing, rent and utility assistance, temporary hotel stays, counseling, church connections and more to at-risk Gwinnett County residents from Doraville, Norcross, Peachtree Corners, Tucker and the greater Gwinnett area.
Through community partner referrals and various funding cycles, the organization’s mission is to “help those in crisis by collaborating with the community to offer programs and services that transform lives through the love of Christ.”
“Your $3,500 check will go towards feeding 180 people for three months,” shared Ryan Jones, executive director at Neighborhood Cooperative Ministries. “Our programs are designed to help our neighbors who sincerely want to break their cycle of poverty and regain financial independence. Making sure they have the basics is critical to their success.”
Giving back to support the community
“The PCBA is pleased to award a check for $3,500 to the Neighborhood Cooperative Ministries to contribute to their ongoing need of restocking their pantry and providing financial assistance as part of our community outreach,” said PCBA President, Lisa Proctor. “Our outreach committee and board are committed to supporting our community as our businesses continue to grow.”
Funds for the PCBA Community Outreach Program are raised throughout the year from PCBA membership, sponsorship and an annual charity event. Donations and scholarships are awarded at their monthly events so that members have the opportunity to learn more about the community organizations and their programs.
Over the past 12 years, the PCBA has awarded 19 scholarships to outstanding graduating high school seniors and donated in excess of $165,500 back into the community.
About Peachtree Corners Business Association
“Where businesses come to grow,” the Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) is a business membership organization that focuses on innovative approaches, programs, shared resources, community outreach and opportunities for member businesses and professionals to connect, develop, grow and prosper.
The PCBA is made up of businesses of all sizes and types who want to expand their reach and grow their business within Peachtree Corners and the greater metro Atlanta area.
For more information visit peachtreecornersba.com.
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