For Woods, McLaughlin Is the Foundation
When It Comes to the Star's Involvement in the AT& T National, There's a Go-To Guy, and It Isn't Tiger
Though Greg McLaughlin had just 116 days to organize last year's AT& T National, he told Congressional not to worry: "When we do something as part of the Tiger Woods Foundation, we do it right."
(By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)
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Thursday, July 3, 2008
In the fall of 1998, Greg McLaughlin, then the executive director of the Western Golf Association, met with Ed Sherman, a sportswriter for the Chicago Tribune. Over lunch, the two men discussed how the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields would affect McLaughlin's Western Open, located 30 miles away at Cog Hill.
After a thoughtful exchange, Sherman paused. He knew McLaughlin was going places.
"There's no way you're going to be here in 2003," Sherman said then. "You're going to be hooking up with Tiger."
McLaughlin laughed, but the prediction proved prophetic. By January 2000, Earl Woods had approached McLaughlin about leading the Tiger Woods Foundation. After piecing together the inaugural AT&T National in 116 days last year, McLaughlin returns to Congressional Country Club as the foundation's president and Tiger Woods's trusted partner.
The relationship began with a hunch. When McLaughlin was the tournament director for the Los Angeles Open in the late 1980s, he followed Woods's junior career with interest. In 1990, Woods won the Junior World Championships in the age 13-14 division at Torrey Pines. Headlines boasted about the budding star.
McLaughlin crafted a plan. He pictured a public-relations windfall. Woods was from nearby Cypress, Calif., and McLaughlin sought to make a splash; he wanted to give Woods his first tour exemption.
But McLaughlin's colleagues didn't share his vision. Thoughts of a 15-year-old Woods teeing off with professionals was a stretch, and tournament officials were skeptical.
"They thought I was a little crazy," McLaughlin said.
They didn't think so a year later. Before a bogey on the final hole knocked him out of contention, Woods had a real chance to qualify for the Los Angeles Open on his own. The performance hinted at his potential, and McLaughlin made sure everyone paid attention. Within the next six months, tournament officials offered Woods a spot in the field. In 1992, Woods made his PGA Tour debut.
Over time, McLaughlin's profile grew. He became the tournament director for the Honda Classic, then the Western Open. In the fall of 1993, he shortened his visit to the PGA Tour sponsors meetings in Hawaii to fly to Chicago and negotiate with Motorola for the Western Open's title sponsorship.
He closed the deal. In 1995, the event's $2 million payout stood as golf's third-largest purse in a full-field event, behind the Tour Championship ($3 million) and the Masters ($2.2 million). McLaughlin changed the way the Western Golf Association did business.
"It created a lot of buzz and excitement in Chicago," said Don Johnson, president of the Western Golf Association. "Because Motorola is a Chicago-based company, and at that time, they were successful.
