Former PGA Tour Chief Donates $13M to Launch New Charity

A former PGA Tour commissioner just reminded the golf world what the sport is really about with a stunning $13 million donation.

Tim Finchem, who led the PGA Tour from 1994 to 2016, and his wife Holly are funding the launch of PGA Tour Charities, a new national platform designed to coordinate charitable efforts across the sport. The announcement came Monday in Atlanta, just as the tour prepared to award $10 million to one player at the season-ending championship.

The timing matters. In recent years, golf headlines have focused on money flowing into players' pockets, from the breakaway LIV Golf league to the PGA Tour's new for-profit commercial venture that gave players equity for the first time.

Now the tour is deliberately shifting the spotlight back to communities. PGA Tour Charities will create national campaigns around health, youth access and community service, connecting with local tournaments to raise both funds and awareness for causes that matter.

Player Lucas Glover, who's helping shape the new initiatives, put it bluntly. "With COVID and then LIV coming in, it became more about money in our pocket instead of money in the pocket of people who need it more than we do," he said. "It's time we put it back on the forefront of our minds."

The PGA Tour has quietly been professional sports' charitable leader for decades. Since a $10,000 donation at the 1938 Palm Beach Invitational, tour events have generated more than $4.4 billion for charity, with each tournament donating net proceeds to local causes.

The Ripple Effect

The Finchems' gift does more than launch a new program. It protects the charitable engine that powers communities hosting PGA Tour events, from Phoenix to Dallas to dozens of cities in between.

Thousands of volunteers show up year after year because they know their work helps their neighbors. The new structure ensures that even as the tour reorganizes its schedule in 2028, charity levels won't drop.

Finchem oversaw massive growth during his tenure, including TV deals, prize money increases and the creation of The First Tee youth program in 1997. He was commissioner when tour charity donations crossed both the $1 billion mark in 2005 and $2 billion in 2014.

"This donation is more than a capstone on Tim's unwavering commitment to charity," Holly Finchem said. "It is a celebration of our belief in this great game and the PGA Tour."

The message is clear: golf can be about both professional excellence and community impact, and the Finchems just invested $13 million to prove it.