Living Legends
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As one of the most anticipated annual events of the sporting world, Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf is shaping more than just the stats of the tournament’s top-notch players—its shaping the city of Savannah itself.
Of all the landmarks in America’s first planned city, a once unsightly, long-overlooked slice of land across the Savannah River never figured to be one of them. But for one week each spring, Hutchinson Island is as important to the city’s identity as any of its historic squares.
On the island, upon the sprawling greens making up The Club at Savannah Harbor, some of the biggest names in golf come each April to compete for one of the biggest purses on the Champions Tour at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf. There, the world’s attention is turned towards Savannah through a television broadcast seen in over 80 countries worldwide— the only live network coverage for a local sports event.
“This is a marquee event in Savannah, probably the largest single event in Savannah besides St. Patrick’s Day,’’ says Tim Iley, Legends executive director . “It’s a cornerstone event to sell Savannah to businesses and it’s obviously a premier marketing tool for the city.”
Last year’s players owned a combined 371 PGA Tour victories and 34 major championship titles, a Champions Tour roll call that included the circuit’s most productive players—Jay Haas, Loren Roberts, Craig Stadler and Tom Kite—as well as its most popular—Fuzzy Zoeller, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Watson. The way they played for three days on Hutchinson Island proved that the talent they exhibited during the busier days of their careers was not left in the past.
Five different two-man teams finished at 27- under par or better for the week, including champions Tom Watson and Andy North, who shot a tournament record 31-under. In the event’s best-ball format, in which both players play every hole and only the lower score on each counts for the team total, there were 12 individual rounds of 62 or better.
“Every year,’’ Watson said after he and North had earned their third consecutive team victory, “the field gets deeper and the competition gets better.’’
Yet, as good as it is, competition is only a part of Savannah’s biggest sports event. Hostess City sport lovers would argue that the most powerful elements of Legends is the validation it provides the city and the excitement it brings to golf fans everywhere.
A NEW DIRECTION
As he drove to Savannah for the first time in the spring of 2002, Iley was admittedly skeptical. He knew the Legends had routinely drawn more than 100,000 fans a year during its two decades in Austin, Texas. He had seen it succeed in one of golf ’s swankiest neighborhoods in Palm Springs, California and oversaw a move to St. Augustine, Florida, where it was used to help open the World Golf Village.
But, with the tournament seeking another new home, he was on his way to entertain a pitch from a city that at the time had a population of less than 300,000 in its seven county surrounding area and just five major companies, by far the smallest home his tournament would ever have.
“When they said Savannah,’’ Iley says of officials at PGA Tour headquarters, “I thought, what in the world are they thinking? How are they ever going to support this?’’ What he didn’t know was how ready the city was to move up to a new league in regard to sports.
Before the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf event arrived, Savannah had long held a reputation as a poor sports town. Its past was dotted with failed franchises, minor league basketball and indoor soccer teams that lasted two years each, and events that went away because of a lack of support. Its only previous attempt at nationalscale sports was an Indy Lights auto race—also on Hutchinson Island—that lasted just one year due to reported financial mismanagement. What complicated the question of whether the city would ever actually support sports was the belief that Savannah’s fans were waiting for something better, that they could only be courted by the kind of substantial event they felt their growing city deserved, but to that point could not get.
“The important thing was to find the right kind of event and a Champions Tour event was it,’’ explains Al Kennickel, who was chairman of the Savannah Sports Council when that organization started chasing the Legends and has been the tournament’s volunteer chairman every year it’s called Savannah home. “We knew Savannah was a golf town. And we knew we couldn’t get a PGA Tour event. But we thought if we could get a senior event and bring players like Tom Watson and Gary Player and Arnold Palmer to Savannah, we were confident it would work.’’ That confidence didn’t just catch Iley’s attention at that first meeting. It changed his mind about Savannah.
“By the time I got back in the car, I was absolutely fired up,” he says of his first afternoon in the Hostess City. “Those guys [on the Sports Council] put on the full-court press and when I saw the sites and the history and the charm and felt the hospitality, I knew this was the place for us to be. I went from skepticism to elation in short order.’’ Champions Tour professionals would soon join him there. Only they would skip the first step completely.
AN INSTANT HIT
Though Savannah waited quite a long time for an event like the Legends to arrive, acceptance of it came immediately. Crowds were larger than expected the first year, beginning with the Demaret Division tournament for golfers 70 and over on Monday and Tuesday of tournament week that drew the size galleries seen at Champions Tour weekend events.
Fueled by the appearance of Palmer, the pro-am rounds later in the week were packed. And, come Sunday afternoon, the Legends’ new venue had already won over the players on their first visit.
“It really feels that this tournament has found a home,’’ Bruce Lietzke said in his champion’s speech after winning the first Legends in Savannah. “I see a pretty good future here. I think this town has opened its arms to the Champions Tour and I think we’re here for a good long time. I’ve got a good feeling about this.’’
And it’s only gotten better over time, with more players praising the city, the tournament site and the distinctive setup each year.
Tour professionals are used to special treatment, whether it’s at the luxury hotels where they stay during tournaments or the pristine golf courses on which they play. But, at the Legends, players experience something unique: a camaraderie off the course that rivals the competition on it. Almost all the players in the event stay at the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort Hotel & Spa on Hutchinson Island during the tournament and groups of them, with their wives take the water taxi over to River Street and dine together downtown most nights of the event. So, for one week of the season, the loneliest sport in the world might not seem so solitary.
“This is what I imagine it was like on the PGA Tour years ago when players traveled together and stayed together,’’ said two-time Legends winner Jay Haas. “There’s a sense of closeness to the other players here that you just don’t get anywhere else and I think that’s great.’’
“This tournament has the greatest feel to it from a player’s standpoint because we compete as a group and we socialize as a group at night,’’ added Lietzke. “That’s something we don’t do anywhere else and never did on the regular tour. It’s been a great addition to the tour.’’ And the Legends had been an invaluable addition to the city.
PARTNERS IN COMMERCE
During its time here, the Legends has transformed from seeking the support of the local business community to being a vital part of it, donating more than $1 million to Savannah based charities in its first six years. The event even directs particular attention to groups and organizations that rely on it. A Military Appreciation Program in which local companies buy tickets and donate them back to the tournament has provided free admission to 3,000 active military in each of the last three years. In 2008, the tournament’s largest charitable contribution went to families of victims of the Imperial Sugar refinery explosion.
The event has almost single-handedly sustained the local chapter of the First Tee Program, a PGA Tour-backed initiative that helps introduce underprivileged kids to golf, donating $50,000 a year to the organization and providing opportunities to its young members. Each year, First Tee kids serve as standard bearers on the course at the Legends, carrying signs that post the players’ scores, and Champions Tour players also donate their time to play a round with dozens of the junior golfers at a separate fundraising tournament.
“Without the Legends, there would be no First Tee of Savannah,’’ says Pete Chaison, a member of that organization’s board of directors. “It’s unbelievable how much the tournament has done to benefit this organization and these kids.’’ The tournament has had a similarly significant effect on business in Savannah, attracting attention to existing companies here and also helping to recruit new ones by the way it projects the city. Rick Winger, president of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, has witnessed the Legends’ impact during tournament week when SEDA operates a promotional tent on the course.
“We have brought companies here for the tournament and they have moved here,’’ explains Winger, who also chaired the Savannah Sports Council within the four-year period it attempted to land the Legends. “I don’t know how many, but it has certainly happened. And it’s easy to see why when we have the granddaddy of the whole Champions Tour right here in our community. What an absolutely wonderful way to showcase our city.”
“People in brand management will tell you it’s all about awareness,” Winger continues. “Well, when you have international television and players coming here and loving Savannah and the broadcasters going on the air and saying great things about the city, you couldn’t go out and buy that kind of exposure—even if you could afford it.’’
“I think Savannah is just a great fit for us because of the history here, the charm of the city and the hospitality. The site is just so conducive for any event.’’ And now the once independent brands of the tournament and the city seem almost inseparable.
A PROUD HOME
The Legends’ success in Savannah is the fruit of two unrelated concepts formed nearly three decades ago and separated by more than 1,000 miles. In 1980, seeking a way to extend the unique allure of Arnold Palmer at a time when he was no longer competitive in professional golf, the PGA Tour came up with the idea for a tournament for players over the age of 50. It would be a place where the game’s past champions, who previously could only retreat into obscurity, could be at the center of competition again. It was also somewhere that the aging Palmer could contend once more and thereby keep his army of fans from seeking other interests in sports. The event was the Legends of Golf, which was immediately popular and eventually spurred the Senior Tour, which is now the Champions Tour.
Around the same time that the Tour was growing and adding events each year during the early ‘80s, John McKleskey, a Savannah entrepreneur, started promoting the idea of developing Hutchinson Island. Over the next two decades, the project McKleskey envisioned stalled, set back by bankruptcy of supporting companies and healthy public skepticism—until CSX and the Westin Corporation partnered on a luxury hotel to anchor the development. The accompanying resort-quality golf course, the 7,200-yard Club at Savannah Harbor, not only elevated the local golf market in stature, it gave the city a course that could handle a major professional event. And that’s exactly what the Legends has become in Savannah, where the oldest event on the Champions Tour has created a new phenomenon in local sports, proving finally that this city can support a national event as eagerly as it once pursued one.
“I think Savannah is just a great fit for us because of the history here, the charm of the city and the hospitality. The site is just so conducive for any event,’’ remarks Iley. “We’re the smallest market on the entire Champions Tour, but we get the kind of corporate participation that allows us to run the event. Plus, the players love it and Liberty Mutual loves it. It’s a great match.’’
The pride this tournament brings forth from the city is unmatched. “When I was growing up, the only thing Hutchinson Island was good for was dumping dead bodies,’’ jokes Kennickel. “But now look at it. When I drive over the bridge and I look down and I see the Westin and I see that golf course, I think to myself, ‘Wow, this is Savannah?’ Sometimes during the tournament, if I have a few free minutes, I’ll go up into one of the sponsor tents and just sit in the back and watch the television coverage. And when I see that shot of the Savannah River, with a ship going by and the Westin in the background, it makes me think, man, I hope my friends who know I live in Savannah are watching this.’’
GET ON THE GREEN!
What: Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf
When: April 20–April 26, 2009
Where: Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa, The Club at Savannah Harbor
Tickets: Tickets are sold for single events or in packages. Prices vary. To buy tickets, visit www.lmlog.com or call the tournament office at 912.236.1333.
Images shown in body copy: legends1.jpeg, legends2.jpeg, legends3.jpeg, legends4.jpeg, legends5.jpeg
Is there a media gallery for this article? No
Formatted Body Copy:
As one of the most anticipated annual events of the sporting world, Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf is shaping more than just the stats of the tournament’s top-notch players—its shaping the city of Savannah itself.
Of all the landmarks in America’s first planned city, a once unsightly, long-overlooked slice of land across the Savannah River never figured to be one of them. But for one week each spring, Hutchinson Island is as important to the city’s identity as any of its historic squares.
On the island, upon the sprawling greens making up The Club at Savannah Harbor, some of the biggest names in golf come each April to compete for one of the biggest purses on the Champions Tour at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf. There, the world’s attention is turned towards Savannah through a television broadcast seen in over 80 countries worldwide— the only live network coverage for a local sports event.
legends1.jpeg
“This is a marquee event in Savannah, probably the largest single event in Savannah besides St. Patrick’s Day,’’ says Tim Iley, Legends executive director . “It’s a cornerstone event to sell Savannah to businesses and it’s obviously a premier marketing tool for the city.”
Last year’s players owned a combined 371 PGA Tour victories and 34 major championship titles, a Champions Tour roll call that included the circuit’s most productive players—Jay Haas, Loren Roberts, Craig Stadler and Tom Kite—as well as its most popular—Fuzzy Zoeller, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Watson. The way they played for three days on Hutchinson Island proved that the talent they exhibited during the busier days of their careers was not left in the past.
Five different two-man teams finished at 27- under par or better for the week, including champions Tom Watson and Andy North, who shot a tournament record 31-under. In the event’s best-ball format, in which both players play every hole and only the lower score on each counts for the team total, there were 12 individual rounds of 62 or better.
“Every year,’’ Watson said after he and North had earned their third consecutive team victory, “the field gets deeper and the competition gets better.’’
Yet, as good as it is, competition is only a part of Savannah’s biggest sports event. Hostess City sport lovers would argue that the most powerful elements of Legends is the validation it provides the city and the excitement it brings to golf fans everywhere.
A NEW DIRECTION
As he drove to Savannah for the first time in the spring of 2002, Iley was
admittedly skeptical. He knew the Legends had routinely drawn more than 100,000 fans a year during its two decades in Austin, Texas. He had seen it succeed in one of golf ’s swankiest neighborhoods in Palm Springs, California and oversaw a move to St. Augustine, Florida, where it was used to help open the World Golf Village.
But, with the tournament seeking another new home, he was on his way to entertain a pitch from a city that at the time had a population of less than 300,000 in its seven county surrounding area and just five major companies, by far the smallest home his tournament would ever have.
“When they said Savannah,’’ Iley says of officials at PGA Tour headquarters, “I thought, what in the world are they thinking? How are they ever going to support this?’’ What he didn’t know was how ready the city was to move up to a new league in regard to sports.
Before the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf event arrived, Savannah had long held a reputation as a poor sports town. Its past was dotted with failed franchises, minor league basketball and indoor soccer teams that lasted two years each, and events that went away because of a lack of support. Its only previous attempt at nationalscale sports was an Indy Lights auto race—also on Hutchinson Island—that lasted just one year due to reported financial mismanagement. What complicated the question of whether the city would ever actually support sports was the belief that Savannah’s fans were waiting for something better, that they could only be courted by the kind of substantial event they felt their growing city deserved, but to that point could not get.
legends2.jpeg
“The important thing was to find the right kind of event and a Champions Tour event was it,’’ explains Al Kennickel, who was chairman of the Savannah Sports Council when that organization started chasing the Legends and has been the tournament’s volunteer chairman every year it’s called Savannah home. “We knew Savannah was a golf town. And we knew we couldn’t get a PGA Tour event. But we thought if we could get a senior event and bring players like Tom Watson and Gary Player and Arnold Palmer to Savannah, we were confident it would work.’’ That confidence didn’t just catch Iley’s attention at that first meeting. It changed his mind about Savannah.
“By the time I got back in the car, I was absolutely fired up,” he says of his first afternoon in the Hostess City. “Those guys [on the Sports Council] put on the full-court press and when I saw the sites and the history and the charm and felt the hospitality, I knew this was the place for us to be. I went from skepticism to elation in
short order.’’ Champions Tour professionals would soon join him there. Only they would skip the first step completely.
AN INSTANT HIT
Though Savannah waited quite a long time for an event like the Legends to arrive, acceptance of it came immediately. Crowds were larger than expected the first year, beginning with the Demaret Division tournament for golfers 70 and over on Monday and Tuesday of tournament week that drew the size galleries seen at Champions Tour weekend events.
Fueled by the appearance of Palmer, the pro-am rounds later in the week were packed. And, come Sunday afternoon, the Legends’ new venue had already won over the players on their first visit.
legends4.jpeg
“It really feels that this tournament has found a home,’’ Bruce Lietzke said in his champion’s speech after winning the first Legends in Savannah. “I see a pretty good future here. I think this town has opened its arms to the Champions Tour and I think we’re here for a good long time. I’ve got a good feeling about this.’’
And it’s only gotten better over time, with more players praising the city, the tournament site and the distinctive setup each year.
Tour professionals are used to special treatment, whether it’s at the luxury hotels where they stay during tournaments or the pristine golf courses on which they play. But, at the Legends, players experience something unique: a camaraderie off the course that rivals the competition on it. Almost all the players in the event stay at the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort Hotel & Spa on Hutchinson Island during the tournament and groups of them, with their wives take the water taxi over to River Street and dine together downtown most nights of the event. So, for one week of the season, the loneliest sport in the world might not seem so solitary.
“This is what I imagine it was like on the PGA Tour years ago when players traveled together and stayed together,’’ said two-time Legends winner Jay Haas. “There’s a sense of closeness to the other players here that you just don’t get anywhere else and I think that’s great.’’
legends3.jpeg
“This tournament has the greatest feel to it from a player’s standpoint because we compete as a group and we socialize as a group at night,’’ added Lietzke. “That’s something we don’t do anywhere else and never did on the regular tour. It’s been a great addition to the tour.’’ And the Legends had been an invaluable addition to the city.
PARTNERS IN COMMERCE
During its time here, the Legends has transformed from seeking the support of the local business community to being a vital part of it, donating more than $1 million to Savannah based charities in its first six years. The event even directs particular attention to groups and organizations that rely on it. A Military Appreciation Program in which local companies buy tickets and donate them back to the tournament has provided free admission to 3,000 active military in each of the last three years. In 2008, the tournament’s largest charitable contribution went to families of victims of the Imperial Sugar refinery explosion.
The event has almost single-handedly sustained the local chapter of the First Tee Program, a PGA Tour-backed initiative that helps introduce underprivileged kids to golf, donating $50,000 a year to the organization and providing opportunities to its young members. Each year, First Tee kids serve as standard bearers on the course at the Legends, carrying signs that post the players’ scores, and Champions Tour players also donate their time to play a round with dozens of the junior golfers at a separate fundraising tournament.
“Without the Legends, there would be no First Tee of Savannah,’’ says Pete Chaison, a member of that organization’s board of directors. “It’s unbelievable how much the tournament has done to benefit this organization and these kids.’’ The tournament has had a similarly significant effect on business in Savannah, attracting attention to existing companies here and also helping to recruit new ones by the way it projects the city. Rick Winger, president of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, has witnessed the Legends’ impact during tournament week when SEDA operates a promotional tent on the course.
“We have brought companies here for the tournament and they have moved here,’’ explains Winger, who also chaired the Savannah Sports Council within the four-year period it attempted to land the Legends. “I don’t know how many, but it has certainly happened. And it’s easy to see why when we have the granddaddy of the whole Champions Tour right here in our community. What an absolutely wonderful way to showcase our city.”
“People in brand management will tell you it’s all about awareness,” Winger continues. “Well, when you have international television and players coming here and loving Savannah and the broadcasters going on the air and saying great things about the city, you couldn’t go out and buy that kind of exposure—even if you could afford it.’’
“I think Savannah is just a great fit for us because of the history here, the charm of the city and the hospitality. The site is just so conducive for any event.’’ And now the once independent brands of the tournament and the city seem almost inseparable.
A PROUD HOME
The Legends’ success in Savannah is the fruit of two unrelated concepts formed nearly three decades ago and separated by more than 1,000 miles. In 1980, seeking a way to extend the unique allure of Arnold Palmer at a time when he was no longer competitive in professional golf, the PGA Tour came up with the idea for a tournament for players over the age of 50. It would be a place where the game’s past champions, who previously could only retreat into obscurity, could be at the center of competition again. It was also somewhere that the aging Palmer could contend once more and thereby keep his army of fans from seeking other interests in sports. The event was the Legends of Golf, which was immediately popular and eventually spurred the Senior Tour, which is now the Champions Tour.
legends5.jpeg
Around the same time that the Tour was growing and adding events each year during the early ‘80s, John McKleskey, a Savannah entrepreneur, started promoting the idea of developing Hutchinson Island. Over the next two decades, the project McKleskey envisioned stalled, set back by bankruptcy of supporting companies and healthy public skepticism—until CSX and the Westin Corporation partnered on a luxury hotel to anchor the development. The accompanying resort-quality golf course, the 7,200-yard Club at Savannah Harbor, not only elevated the local golf market in stature, it gave the city a course that could handle a major professional event. And that’s exactly what the Legends has become in Savannah, where the oldest event on the Champions Tour has created a new phenomenon in local sports, proving finally that this city can support a national event as eagerly as it once pursued one.
“I think Savannah is just a great fit for us because of the history here, the charm of the city and the hospitality. The site is just so conducive for any event,’’ remarks Iley. “We’re the smallest market on the entire Champions Tour, but we get the kind of corporate participation that allows us to run the event. Plus, the players love it and Liberty Mutual loves it. It’s a great match.’’
The pride this tournament brings forth from the city is unmatched.
“When I was growing up, the only thing Hutchinson Island was good for was dumping dead bodies,’’ jokes Kennickel. “But now look at it. When I drive over the bridge and I look down and I see the Westin and I see that golf course, I think to myself, ‘Wow, this is Savannah?’ Sometimes during the tournament, if I have a few free minutes, I’ll go up into one of the sponsor tents and just sit in the back and watch the television coverage. And when I see that shot of the Savannah River, with a ship going by and the Westin in the background, it makes me think, man, I hope my friends who know I live in Savannah are watching this.’’
GET ON THE GREEN!
What: Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf
When: April 20–April 26, 2009
Where: Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa, The Club at Savannah Harbor
Tickets: Tickets are sold for single events or in packages. Prices vary. To buy tickets, visit www.lmlog.com or call the tournament office at 912.236.1333.
Tags: golf, Hutchinson Island, Legends of Golf, sport
