The Players Championship and the PGA Tour yesterday announced that $8.5M will be "donated to area charities from proceeds raised" through the '16 event at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, according to a front-page piece by Garry Smits of the FLORIDA TIMES-UNION. The amount is $400,000 "more than last year" and sets a "record for the largest donation to charity" in the history of The Players. The announcement, part of The Players' "Giving Back Month," was "unveiled behind the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse" on a video featuring golfer Jim Furyk and his family, who live in Ponte Vedra. The event yesterday "included guests from a cross-section of the organizations that will benefit from the donations." Much of the $8.5M "will be donated to children’s charities" as a part of the PGA Tour’s '11 goal of earmarking $50M to organizations "involved in health and education within 10 years." The Players Tournament Exec Dir Matthew Rapp said that the increase in charitable donations "has been possible through a series of enhancements to the course and the tournament" that have resulted in a 78% increase in attendance and a 116% increase in concession sales in the past eight years. They also have been possible from "support from the tournament’s main corporate partners," Morgan Stanley, PWC and Optum, and the "annual sold out corporate hospitality venues" (FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, 11/2).
