Charity Begins on the Golf Course

Michael Jordan has turned his passion for the game into an eduring legacy that benefits charities while fueling his competitive spirit.

PHOTOGRAPHER: KERZNER INTERNATIONAL LTD

Michael JordanJordan’s career has expanded from NBA player and executive to restaurant owner, entrepreneur, global businessman and golfing philanthropist. His intensity, once channeled toward defeating opponents, is now focused on business success and conquering charitable horizons. Still, MJ pursues his business and amateur sporting passions with the same focus that earned him five Most Valuable Player Awards and six NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls.

In fact, what Tiger Woods is to the PGA Tour and youth golf, Jordan is to celebrity and charity golf. “I always believe that if you put in the work, the results will come,” Jordan has said many times. “I don’t do things halfheartedly. Because I know if I do then I can expect halfhearted results.” Jordan’s remarks, often cited among his most famous, speak not only to his career with the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards, but his commitment to his post-basketball career.

For Woods, the marketing of his fame is a constant component of his ongoing career in one arena, the golf course. But for Jordan, despite his departure from the NBA following the 2002-03 season, his global success could be more expansive away from the court than it was during the height of his playing career. One recent example of the power of Jordan the businessman, corporate entity, and trusted endorser, was overtly apparent during Super Bowl XXXVII. New commercials for Hanes and Gatorade featuring Jordan debuted during the game’s January 26 broadcast on ABC. Both products are included in Jordan’s endorsement empire whose range includes sunglasses, cologne, sweat suits and soft drinks, and they were broadcast during the most expensive, highly coveted airtime on television. According to one pre-Super Bowl national survey, Jordan’s double appearance in commercials during the game, which can cost more than $2 million for 30 seconds, further proved his unmatched global appeal.

Last October, New Knowledge Networks, a consumer research firm in Menlo Park, Calif., in conjunction with the magazine Advertising Age, released the results of a national endorsement popularity survey. More than 26 percent of respondents indicated they are more likely to buy a product endorsed by Jordan than any other athlete. Tiger Woods (19 percent), Lance Armstrong, (18 percent), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (14 percent) and sisters Serena and Venus Williams (14 percent) completed the top-five endorsees.

While Woods and Armstrong the five-time consecutive Tour de France winner, are the most highly commercially exposed athletes, according to the survey, Jordan remains the most trusted endorsement athlete. “Jordan is not the corporate endorser he was in the ‘80s and ‘90s but he remains an international icon,” Abraham Madkour, Editor-in-Chief of The Sports Business Daily, said in USA Today in the media build-up prior to the Super Bowl. “Since his retirement from the NBA, I suspect he holds the title of “Endorser Emeritus,” he added.

As much as his endorsement value remains impressive, Jordan’s direct connection to the sport has shifted. It’s now golf clubs instead of basketballs. And when he’s not playing golf, he’s expanding his charitable horizons, many of which have grown exponentially because of his golf. For many years, Jordan and his wife Juanita have supported the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the UNCF (College Fund), Special Olympics and numerous other groups for children and families. For 15 years, the Michael Jordan Golf Classic was held in Greenville, N.C. It raised more than $2 million for Ronald McDonald Houses throughout North Carolina. And since 2001, Jordan has hosted the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

The event’s third edition was held January 7-11 at the exclusive One & Only Ocean Club in the Bahamas. Broadcast for two hours on NBC television, the format included a two-day, 36-hole celebrity amateur that paired one celebrity with three amateurs and a two-day, 36-hole celebrity tournament that matched world-class athletes against celebrity amateurs. The athletes were a who’s who across the spectrum of sports: Wayne Gretzky, Boris Becker, Brandi Chastain, John McEnroe, John Elway, Barry Bonds, Pete Sampras, Charles Barkley, Julius Erving and, of course, Jordan. Celebrity golfers included: Bryant Gumbel, Beverly Johnson, Judd Nelson, Alan Thicke and two-time defending tournament winner Janet Jones.

While the play included good and not-so-good amateur golf, the final 36-hole competition was declared a tie after three playoffs between the teams of Rollie Fingers and Judd Nelson versus John Smoltz and Angie Everhart. “I enjoyed it, other then me not being in it,” said Jordan, who mediated the playoff holes and suggested the tie. “It was great golf, great celebrities and volunteers who again greatly supported the tournament.” The invitational was more fun than competitive and its purpose was clear—the continuation of Jordan’s nearly two-decade dedication to charities. While tournament winners could donate their prize money to their charities of choice several hundred thousand dollars from the tournament also benefited the Atlantis HIV/AIDS initiative, the James Jordan Foundation and Ronald McDonald Houses of North Carolina.

Still, it was Jordan’s remark about not being in his own tournament’s playoff that provided a glimpse into his omnipresent competitive nature. “The first thing you have to understand is that Michael is the fiercest competitor you will ever meet,” says Davis Love III, the 1997 PGA champion who introduced Jordan to golf when both were students at the University of North Carolina. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who hates to lose as much as he does.” Without the NBA or professional baseball (Jordan briefly played the Chicago White Sox organization in the mid-1990s) it is golf that now ignites Jordan’s passion to win. And while not on the level of Woods or the rest of the PGA Tour of Champions Tour, Jordan’s interest in golf is no different than his quest to win NBA titles.

Now age 41, he first learned to play golf as a college junior. Love and Jordan’s roommate at North Carolina were friends, and when Jordan was introduced to Love and first played the game, he was enthralled. Seven years ago, when he began to increase his appearances with the former Celebrity Golf Association (CGA), Jordan was profiled in the tour’s official tournament guide. In the article, Jordan’s passion for golf was detailed with some astounding statistics. The former NBA star is reportedly a member of an estimated dozen private clubs and he owns more than 40 sets of clubs. He has a 3,500-square-foot putting green in his back yard, and he has state-of-the-art golf computer equipment in his basement.  And while his business schedule doesn’t always allow regular year-round play, Jordan has been known to complete 36 holes daily. “I did get the bug, like anyone who had never played the game,” Jordan recalled in the CGA’s profile. “I had a lot to learn. But I got good help with my swing right from the beginning so I was able to develop my game fairly quickly even though I didn’t have much experience.”

His penchant for success on and off the court has given him six NBA titles and now a nearly 20-year platform for his charitable successes. “I don’t care what it is, golf, basketball or pool,” Jordan has often said. “If the person standing between success and failure is me, then I’ll take myself every time.