‘Golf by day, music by night’ fuels Korn Ferry Tour’s Albertsons Boise Open

Jeff Sanders isn’t sure who is going to win next year’s four majors but this he does know: “They are going to have played in the Albertsons Boise Open,” he said ticking off how two-time U.S. Open champ Wyndham Clark competed here in 2018, four-time major winner Scottie Scheffler in 2019 and last year’s U.S. Open champ J.J. Spaun in 2021. “They all have played here.”

But the stars of tomorrow is not why every ticket for Thursday-Saturday ― more than 10,000 per day at one of the city’s biggest annual sports happenings ― already had been sold out more than a month in advance of this week’s 37th edition of the event.

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Long before LIV Golf made concerts a mainstay of its golf tournament offerings, Sanders, 70, brought some of the biggest acts to town. He’s overseen 150 concerts at various golf tournaments he’s run over the last 10 years. This year’s lineup in Boise is better than most: Nelly performed on Thursday, the Counting Crows are scheduled for tonight and country rocker Hardy headlines on Saturday.

Sanders’ winning formula that he calls “golf by day, music by night,” goes next level an hour after the conclusion of the last putt dropping at the tournament. Sanders brought Lynyrd Skynrd, Goo Goo Dolls and Darius Rucker to Boise to perform last year. Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Brothers Osborne, Sheryl Crow and Train have been featured in recent years.

Fans get to see great golf and listen to great music for the princely sum of $35. Before clicking to complete the ticket transaction on the tournament web site, fans are given a choice of 41 local charities to choose from as 100 percent of the ticket price has gone to charity for the last 10 years. Fans would probably pay double to see leading acts and still go away smiling but the priority of the sponsor is charity.

The tournament has a concert sponsor for every night among 250 sponsors. For Albertsons, a national grocery chain based in Boise, it’s a chance to give back to the community that has been buying its groceries since 1939. The tournament has generated more than $3 million in charitable giving, which is believed to be the tops on the Korn Ferry Tour, for the past six years and generated $45 million in its 37-year history. 

Some of that charitable giving is raised at a Tuesday night pro-am dinner, where Sammy Hagar performed for an intimate crowd of 900 people. Other pro-am dinner acts have been none too shabby either: ZZ Top, Brett Michael, REO Speedwagon, Keith Urban and John Bon Jovi.

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As a measure of the tournament’s commitment to charity, Sanders extended an exemption to Idaho’s Tyler Aldridge, 41, a resident and ex-Boise State golfer who is a former PGA Tour player and has competed five times in the ABO through the years. Aldridge has been working in real estate in recent years but made an appeal through email to Sanders that grabbed his attention.

“He said, ‘If you give me a spot, I will give 100 percent of my earnings to charity,’ ” Sanders told local media at media day in July. “I have been in this business for 40 years and I have never seen or heard of any player make that kind of offer.” [Aldridge opened with 74 and is unlikely to make the cut.]

The tournament is signed through 2028, with an option to extend to 2029, and Sanders said he’d like to see it reach at least 40 years. Often duplicated, but never replicated the Boise Albertsons Open is the best, little tournament week in golf.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: ‘Golf by day, music by night’ fuels Korn Ferry Tour’s Albertsons Boise Open