Lucas Glover would like to see the PGA Tour get back to its roots, when its tagline used to be “charity is the winner.”
As a past champion of this week’s John Deere Classic, Glover joined “Golf Today” on Golf Channel on Wednesday and was his usual candid self.
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Glover, who won the JDC in 2021, said he’d like the PGA Tour to focus more of its energies on the good deeds its doing in the communities where they play rather than so much talk about player greed and the gobs of money they are playing for on a weekly basis.
Lucas Glover looks on from the second tee during the first round of the 2025 John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run.
When asked by host Eamon Lynch how he’d like to see the Tour invest the $1.5 billion from private equity partner SSG, Glover said he didn’t know enough about the Tour’s financials to make an educated guess. Glover is the chairman of the Player Advisory Council this season and is slated to join the Tour’s board as a player director (replacing Adam Scott) in January. He hinted at one of his pet projects when he begins serving his term.
“I’d like to see a little more awareness and commitment to the charities that the tournament supports,” Glover said. “I think we’ve lost a little bit of that with the influx of money and the signature series and things like that. I plan to let that be known when I get on the board that I think that should be a focus again is how much we actually do for the communities that we’re in and what that means to be able to do that.”
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The Tour has always prided itself on its philanthropic nature, with tournaments raising over $4 billion for local communities to date. But it has been hard to tout giving back — and less giving — as purses have soared and the charitable component has taken a backseat. It did not go unnoticed by some that PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp never mentioned charity during his press conference last week at the Travelers Championship in which he introduced the framework of the Tour’s future competitive structure following a lengthy process spearheaded by the Future Competition Committee.
Glover, a five-time Tour winner, is about to be in a role of importance and influence and it is encouraging to hear him voice his concern for the charitable side of the Tour’s business and getting back to its roots of giving back. The question remains: Will the Tour be able to make charitable giving a priority in an era of being a for-profit company with an ownership group driven to make a return on its investment? Only time will tell but it is refreshing to hear that Glover intends to pay more than lip service to charity when he’s on the board.
Adam Schupak is a senior writer at Golfweek covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lucas Glover urges PGA Tour to refocus on charity in the communities where it plays
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