Happy New Year !! - So Who Dropped The Ball? - Dog Leg News

About the author

Tom Edrington

Tom Edrington spent the first 10 years of his misguided youth as a sports writer for the Tampa Tribune. His career brought him face to face with many of sports greatest stars -- Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Muhammad Ali, Don Shula, countless Hall of Fame NFL stars, more PGA Tour players than he can count. In 1980 he was honored by the Golf Writers Association of America for writing the best news story that year, his coverage of Jack Nicklaus' U.S. Open victory at Baltusrol. Today, 36 years later, golf is still a great part of his life, thanks to competitive playing days and the wonderful people he has met on this fabulous journey.

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8 Comments

  1. 1

    beege

    great stuff and happy new year. my favorite is the pga tour—250k to houston–o.k. they have some cash and o.k. they own like 42 tpc’s and o.k. they have tv contracts that make me shutter but after all Tom they are a charitable organization designed to give everything to charity ………………….as the late great Dick Enberg would say.OH MY! maybe houston was not a big enough deal for them to get deeply involved…that’s it no big deal just a texas town almost in mexico–all we can say is AMAZING AND OH MY……………………………………….to be continued and because they don;t care, the beat goes on(sonny and cher reference of course)

    1. 1.1

      Tom Edrington

      Amen, Amen and Amen!

  2. 2

    charliej01

    So Tom, how much did you donate to the Hurricane Harvey relief effort?

    1. 2.1

      Tom Edrington

      Gave more of my net worth than the tour did, for sure, plus our Sons Of AmVets Squadron got in on it as well……

      1. 2.1.1

        charliej01

        Seeing how the primary goal of every PGA tournament is a charity…I think they did OK by giving even more. How many NFL or MLB games/series have their primary financial goal to give to a local charity…answer is NONE. So of course they make a really big deal about any giving they do. But when charity is an everyday part of life, like it is for the PGA, they don’t need to impress us with one-time gifts….they’ve already done a good job.

        1. 2.1.1.1

          Tom Edrington

          Isn’t the tour that raises that charity money Charlie, it is typically the local guys like the Thunderbirds out in Arizona, the Salesmanship Club in Dallas, the Copperheads here in the Tampa area (Valspar), so the tour itself isn’t giving anything at all, it simply brings its three-ring circus to town and tells the locals to go knock themselves out with their fundraising efforts….many of the NFL teams were throwing $1 million each into the Houston effort, documented….J.J. Watt raised more than $45 million by himself….the tour has an event there and simply should have stepped up to help in a more generous way, from those I’ve polled on this, more agree that the tour was pretty miserly with its token check.

  3. 3

    charliej01

    Yes….but the NFL teams throwing in $1M don’t do anything on a game by game basis. While its true the PGA doesn’t give the money directly, it is the catalyst for the giving. I don’t think the locals would be knocking themselves out on fundraising if the PGA weren’t coming to town. The point isn’t who provides the money directly, but who can motivate the masses to participating in the giving. Just like your JJ Watt example….that wasn’t his personal money, he was acting as a catalyst.

    1. 3.1

      Tom Edrington

      There’s a difference between Catalyst and Leader…..the PGA Tour hides behind the 501-c-3 shroud that Congress has exposed with the new tax bill….we will have to agree to disagree on my belief that the PGA Tour dropped the ball when it came to making a fair, in-kind contribution to the Harvey effort….like I pointed out, Stacy Lewis forked over $195,000 and her main sponsor matched it….now there’s someone who cares and someone who prefers leadership to being a “catalyst”…

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