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Editor's note: The following story is reprinted with permission from Golf Weekly. From October 4th to 10th, 2021, Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS made its debut at the Timuquana Country Club. Proceeds from the competition benefited several charities in northeastern Florida, including the Jim and Tabitha Furyk Foundation.

Jacksonville, Florida-It takes a village to host a professional golf tournament.

In fact, letting Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS, which debuted at Timuquana Golf Club last week, run like a clockwork is a small army of about 600 volunteers, some of whom are on vacation or flying here just to work long hours. Doing such trivial but vital things such as parking, shuttle players, picking up and sorting the ball, and hauling garbage.

Week after week, year after year, many of the same faces greeted me in the tournament, which made my job and the jobs of the many people they came into contact with easier. I am always surprised when they inevitably tell me this is their 25th or 30th year of volunteering in a specific tournament.

Why do they do this?

I decided that I should have given back in the tournament long ago and found out the answer. There is no better place than to participate in an event in my hometown. Over the years, I have noticed that charities of all sizes in the greater Jacksonville area have benefited from the generosity of the Players’ Championship, especially at the Nemours Children’s Hospital, where my daughter received care.

On Friday, I did a variety of volunteer platters, participated in short-term work in the practice range, walked with flag bearers and scorers, chatted with people washing caddie bibs at night, and even went on horseback riding with the chairman. He didn't let me carry any rubbish, but it was only because it would spoil the fun of trade lawyer Mike Crumpler. He said that volunteering for tournaments and tossing in the rubbish was his best week of the year.

There are a total of 26 committee leaders-from first aid to admissions and the first tee-off announcer. They supervised a team of personnel, some of whom took time off, paid for the hotel room or traveled out of their pockets, and spent $45 on official volunteer uniforms with shirts and hats. (Lesson: You must wear khaki pants or shorts).

Tabitha Furyk said she exhausted her friends and family who worked hard to make the game a success, including his father-in-law Mike Furyk, who was smoking The cigar greeted the players on the practice tee. But it requires a village. She cannot fully publicize her volunteer work, some of whom have never even seen the camera. It depends on their task, which is why she can’t wait to wait for the volunteer thank-you meeting on Sunday night.

"When you have a complete stranger working for you, it will warm your heart," she said. "I think I have new friends, I haven't even met them yet."

The following are some incredible people I met at work.

Let's start with Davis, the chairman of the tournament volunteer (top left). He has been a tournament volunteer since he was the standard bearer at the Jacksonville Open, the predecessor of the Players Championship at the age of 13. Thirteen years ago, he organized a charity tournament to commemorate his late father, the Don Davis Memorial Tournament. The beneficiary is the hospice hospital, and Tabitha serves on the board of directors. The Don Davis Memorial has evolved into Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS. In the early iterations, this was a two-day event held before the players.

"I know they will raise far more funds than I have ever before," Davis said.

When the Furyks decided to take their game to the next level and become the PGA Tour Championship, Tabitha called Davis and asked him to serve as the volunteer chairman.

"I will do this for you because I know you will do all the work," Davis told her. "When Tabitha puts her mind on something, she will not fail."

As Davis pointed out, it is difficult for most new events to obtain substantial charity funds in the first year. That's not it. Tabitha set an ambitious goal of raising $1 million in the first year. In her opinion, the two-day event raised $500,000 for local charities.

"Therefore, it is impossible for us to hold a week-long event without adding it," she said. "Then I want to grow it to 2 million U.S. dollars and then 3 million U.S. dollars."

Davis is Tabitha's key "winner", almost as important as Phil Mickelson on the court. When Tiger Woods won in 2013, Davis was the volunteer chairman of the player team. As a walking scorer, he has been active in the tournament, including on Sunday in 2015 against Rich Fowler. He caught 17 birdies on TPC Sawgrass three times in a row and won in the playoffs. champion. Davis contacted all the players' chairpersons and assistant chairpersons and recruited a core team-including 15 players' former chairperson volunteers-to ensure that Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS has experienced staff.

"We are a big team. We can't tell him no," said Mark Haynes, chairman of ecology. "When Robert called me, I said,'It looks like we are regrouping the band."

Felice has served as the chairman of the Player Training Ground Committee for ten years. He considers himself a golf fan and says that he always learns something from watching players. This time, he took a fancy to New Zealand's Steven Alker's swing. Felice, who is engaged in drug sales, also noticed that the best players tend to be set at the end of the range in order to escape quickly. The coolest thing he saw? After the professional/amateur matchup, Joey Sindelar took his amateur partner to the shooting range and spent 45 minutes in class with each player.

"They all left, saying that they have participated in several professional/amateur match matches, but no one has ever tried so hard to help them," he said.

It warmed Phyllis' heart. When I asked him why he wanted to volunteer in a golf tournament, he said that he likes to give back to the sport. The creation of Furyk means that he is now not one but two weeks a year to supervise 18 volunteers in the range, including runners who must be 10 years old.

Felice assigned me to work with Robert Petty, a medical worker, who was practicing putting greens to clear sand pits and separating Titleist Pro V1 (shortage). I told him that I saw Mickelson hit a ball-sweeping volunteer in a flop the day before.

"That's me!" he exclaimed.

What did he gain from participating in the volunteer activities of the competition? In addition to doing good deeds, petty bourgeoisie does provide a secondary reason. Those who volunteer for more than a certain number of hours are eligible to participate in the "Game Day" on October 18. Petty, who volunteers with a friend, has never played Timuquana.

"I can check it on the bucket list," he said. "We can't wait."

Kalish lives in Miami and was infected in the 1990s as a result of volunteering for golf tournaments. He used to work for the accounting firm PWC, and one of his clients is sponsoring the Royal Caribbean classic Royal Caribbean. He had volunteered to participate in the former PGA Tour event held in Doral during the flu. In April, he drove to Naples to participate in the Championship Tour, wearing a championship hat signed by David Frost and Davis Love III walking on the ropes, which made him very excited.

The only happier person may be 17-year-old Pope, a senior at the Paxon School of Advanced Studies. When I asked her if she left school to go for a walk with Lee Janzen, Loren Roberts, and Olin Browne, she laughed a lot. happy. This is not Pope’s first rodeo as a standard bearer. When she mentioned that champion Justin Thomas (Justin Thomas) signed her as part of her as part of the Best Standard Bearer of the Year award, she asked Shane Lowry and Brian Harman to participate The players competed and blushed.

When he was in elementary school, Pope's mother got two tickets to the players' tournament and took her daughter to follow Tiger Woods.

"I fell in love with golf walking on the golf course that day," she said.

Pope is the captain of her golf team. When she is not playing, she likes to try to introduce the sport to other young girls, hoping that they will love the sport as much as she does.

"Just before the COVID, I founded a club called "Girls Teeing Off". I managed to get some donations of golf clubs and balls, and volunteered at John E. Ford K-8, where I could Play a few afternoons of golf with girls who have never been in this sport before," she said. "Unfortunately, the school does not allow volunteers to work with students, but I still try to provide free courses for girls who are interested. I hope I can work with more students at school again soon. Until then, I will continue to swing as soon as I have a chance."

The 77-year-old Berger has volunteered 42 times in the Players Championship and countless other tournaments. Berger scratched with scissors and a hammer; his specialty was ropes and staking, and he showed me how he avoided knots. Berger contracted new coronary pneumonia last year and needed a long-term hospitalization.

"They bet on me," he said. "When I took the first aid test for THE PLAYERS in March, one of the doctors said to me,'I never thought I would see you alive again.'"

How did he start to become a volunteer for the tournament many years ago? He chuckled.

"Ann Nimnicht. I went downstairs to see my sister. Ann is her friend. She came over and said, "You didn't do anything, did you?" ""

Nimnicht is a legend among volunteers. Given the family's car dealership, she naturally helped transport in 1964. She picked up Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and their families at the airport, and Charlie Seaford once realized that he had forgotten the heart medicine in the hotel. She turned the front of the car and retrieved the medicine. Somehow, Sifford succeeded. In 1997, she was the first female "red coat", this is the name of the player volunteer chairperson (Steve Elkington is her champion), and has played in the local PGA Tour and PGA Tour Championships. Volunteer in the Korn Ferry International Tour. During Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS, she helped with Club 58, which is one of the reception areas overlooking the 17th and 18th par-three tees. What made her come back?

"The people," she said. "I met people I would never meet in other situations. Every year, it's like a big party."

Former PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman has the foresight and envisages that one day the wallet will grow to millions of dollars, and has formulated a tour policy that all tournaments must support charitable activities, and preferably at 501 -c3 Organize in the form of organization.

"It started with a passion for golf, but it is more important than that," Tabisa said, stabbing why 550 people contributed their time to help the tournament succeed. "It is seeing how it can change their communities."

Tabitha said that Constellation Energy has selected five charities, and she expects at least 15 more charities will benefit from the generous donations of the tournament locally. Davis may sum it up best: "We can't all write big checks, but we can all give time."

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