PALM HARBOR — It happened in San Diego. Charlotte, too. Las Vegas, Palm Beach Gardens and potentially Toronto.
With the PGA Tour and LIV continuing their years-long skirmish over players and purses, the economic uncertainties may be contributing to longtime partners opting out of sponsorship deals at local tournaments around North America.
Which is why Monday’s announcement that Valspar has renewed its sponsorship of the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook through 2030 sounds more like a significant coup than a rubber-stamp business decision.
“This is a really big deal because of everything that’s happened in the last X number of years in the industry, in golf,” said tournament director Tracy West. “There’s been a lot of uncertainty about how everything is going to shake out with LIV. So for Valspar to have the faith that we’re still going in the right direction as the PGA Tour was huge. This is a big investment. To say, ‘Hey, the Valspar Championship will continue to grow and we have faith in this tournament,’ means a lot.”
Especially if you’ve been around to watch this tournament find its footing after some shaky years along the way.
Originally a mixed-team tournament known as the JCPenney Classic, the tournament lost its sponsorship deal in 1999 and organizers decided to pursue a PGA Tour event. The first couple of years, the Tampa Bay Classic went without a title sponsor before becoming the Chrysler Championship in 2003. That later gave way to the PODS Championship and then Transitions Optical and a one-year fling as the Tampa Bay Championship presented by EverBank.
None of the sponsors stuck around after their initial deal.
That’s when Valspar came along as the title sponsor in 2014. Described by Valspar senior vice president Brett White on Monday as a “small, relatively little-known” company out of Minnesota at the time, Valspar would later join forces with Sherwin-Williams as a global giant.
And Valspar has now extended its sponsorship of the golf tournament for a third time, covering a total of 18 years.
“There’s been numerous titles on the tour that have only renewed for a year or two years because they want to see what happens and where everything shakes out,” West said. “So for Valspar to say, ‘No, we’re in this. We’re in this for all the right reasons and we believe in the long-term strength of the PGA Tour,‘ that’s really huge because not every title is necessarily feeling that way.”
This year’s tournament, which runs from March 17-23, includes a purse of $8.7 million with $1.72 million going to the winner.
Peter Malnati, the 2024 winner, said Monday that an obsession with big names and signature events is not necessarily healthy, and tournaments such as the Valspar are critical for golf’s survival.
“I think our core fans from the PGA Tour still absolutely love all of our events, all of our players, the underdog stories,” Malnati said on a Zoom call. “We lose a little something when our schedule starts to revolve around only the few weeks a year when the top players all get together.”
Along with the Valspar extension, the tournament announced Monday that Justin Thomas was committed to play. Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood give Valspar two of the world’s top 10-ranked golfers and eight of the top 30.
West said she expects more commitments to come.
“I feel very confident that we’re going to have some extra nice, fun announcements soon,” she said.
John Romano can be reached at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.
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