Charles Sifford died seven years ago but his legacy is becoming a large part of how the PGA Tour and Charlotte tell the story of bringing the Presidents Cup here for the first time next month.
CBJ previously reported on an upcoming collaboration between the Tour and Presidents Cup host course Quail Hollow Club to create a spinoff event named for Sifford, a Charlotte native who broke the sport’s color line in 1959. Golf teams from six historically Black colleges and universities, including local entry Johnson C. Smith University, will participate.
Last week, in an interview with CBJ about the Presidents Cup, Mayor Vi Lyles invoked Sifford’s pioneering role in men’s golf and the tie-in HBCU event — the Charlie Sifford Centennial Cup — as important links to the community’s values she hopes to convey to visiting site-selection consultants and executives during the event. The Presidents Cup begins Sept. 20 and ends Sept. 25.
Tickets are sold out for three of the four days of match competition, with only limited numbers remaining for Sept. 22, the opening day. Adam Sperling, Presidents Cup executive director, told CBJ last week that corporate hospitality sales and overall ticket sales have already eclipsed any previous Presidents Cup played in the U.S.
Lyles, a Democrat elected to a third term last month, recalled her 2019 visit to the most recent Presidents Cup, played in Melbourne, Australia. The Charlotte mayor was part of a local delegation that traveled to Australia to accept the hand-off to the next Presidents Cup and to see the event up close.
The Presidents Cup was originally supposed to be played at Quail Hollow in 2021 but the pandemic scuttled those plans. In 2020, the Ryder Cup was postponed to 2021, pushing back the Presidents Cup to this year.
Australia showcased its history and heritage in an effective way in 2019, Lyles told CBJ.
“For us, this is a place where we don’t have that kind of history of different people and cultures and the Australian story, but we’ve got a great story to tell,” she said. “This is a great opportunity to show off our own authenticity and what we have. We’re going to show off some of our commitments that we have embraced most recently, for example, the Charlie Sifford story and the participation of our HBCUs and honoring those young people that are playing golf at the schools.”
The mayor said that the city plans to make a strong recruiting pitch while the Presidents Cup is here. Including Sifford’s story and the participation of the HBCUs, Lyles added, offers “a fabulous way of showing that we take diversity and equity and education very seriously.”
City government is working with the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance and the Raleigh-based Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina on coordinated efforts to sell the region and the state, she added.
Representatives from CLT Alliance and the partnership, a recruiting arm that often collaborates with the state commerce department, confirmed their participation.
“In our recruitment efforts, we take a proactive approach in identifying companies that present expansion or relocation opportunities for our region,” Danny Chavez, chief business recruitment officer at CLT Alliance, told CBJ via email. “Events like the Presidents Cup are both an important introduction to the market and are also an opportunity to affirm our case and get us closer to closing the deal.”
CLT Alliance spokeswoman Tanya Mendis added that the organization plans to host a group of Fortune 500 CEOs, executives and site selectors from across the country at the Presidents Cup.
The mayor said the city, the partnership and CLT Alliance are targeting 30 to 50 companies to attend the Presidents Cup and learn about Charlotte, from Sifford’s history-making PGA Tour career to behind-the-scenes tours of Quail Hollow to briefings on the region’s rapidly growing corporate sector and population.
Another priority for city leaders is to convey to visiting companies and executives the civic partnerships that were needed to bring the Presidents Cup to town.
“Because this event would not happen without the business community,” Lyles said.
To read more about the recruitment efforts, click here.
