Sentry to sponsor PGA winners tourney
Business-focused mutual insurance company announces five-year agreement with annual Tournament of Champions
The PGA Tour and Stevens Point-based Sentry Insurance on Wednesday announced a five-year agreement making Sentry the new title sponsor of the winnersonly Tournament of Champions at Kapalua Resort in Hawaii.
The Sentry Tournament of Champions will maintain its traditional spot as the first tournament in January when the 2017-’18 PGA Tour schedule resumes following the holiday break. The agreement extends through the 2021-’22 season.
It is the first major sports sponsorship for Sentry, one of the largest business-focused mutual insurance companies in the United States. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but title sponsorship of a PGA Tour event reportedly starts at $7 million annually.
“We are incredibly excited to be partnering with the PGA Tour and in particular to be the title sponsor of the Tournament of Champions,” said Pete McPartland, the president, CEO and chairman of the board of Sentry. “We have seen how the game of golf aligns so perfectly with the majority of our business, which is the business insurance customer.”
Sentry assumes sponsorship of a tournament that dates to 1953, when it was introduced at Las Vegas’ Desert Inn Country Club as an event for winners from the previous season. The Tournament of Champions remained at Desert Inn until 1967, when it moved to Stardust Country Club.
In 1969, the tournament moved from Las Vegas to La Costa Country Club in Carlsbad, Calif., where it remained for 30 years before relocating to its current home at Kapalua Resort on the island of Maui.
The Tournament of Champions has a rich history of champions, from World Golf Hall of Fame members such as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player to modern-day stars such as Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Jordan Spieth. Madison’s Steve Stricker won the tournament in 2012.
Justin Thomas, who won the PGA Championship on Sunday, is the defending champion.
McPartland said Sentry would leverage title sponsorship of the Tournament of Champions in “two very powerful ways.”
“One is the recognition of Sentry to prospective customers and existing customers,” he said. “The recognition that comes from somebody watching a PGA Tour event, especially over the holidays, and the continual focus on the Sentry Tournament of Champions
would give us recognition we would not get any other way over a fiveyear period, and hopefully longer.
“But also, we’re going to bring some of our top customers and brokers to Kapalua and engage with them. Many of our customers play golf and follow golf. We kind of see it as a year-round opportunity to engage with our customers.”
Sentry and its subsidiaries sell property and casualty insurance, life insurance, annuities and retirement programs to businesses and individuals. The company has more than 4,000 employees in 41 states.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said title sponsorship of the Tournament of Champions would help Sentry introduce its brand to the world.
“That really is our sweet spot, when you’ve got a company with such a rich tradition and history like Sentry, to give them a platform to tell their story,” Monahan said.
While this represents Sentry’s first major sports sponsorship, the company has been involved with golf since 1984 when it built SentryWorld, Wisconsin’s first destination course. SentryWorld recently underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation and was ranked No. 34 on Golf Digest magazine’s 2017 list of “America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses.”