Tournament has raised more than $46 million in charity and has an economic impact of nearly $15 million to Georgia’s Golden Isles
PGA Tour wraps up FedEx Cup Falls at Sea Island Resort on St. Simons Island
The PGA Tour clses its 2024 FedEx Cup Fall season with the RSM Classic at the historic Sea Island Club on St. Simons Island, Ga.
The RSM Classic is the final PGA Tour event of the calendar year, held at the Sea Island Resort in Georgia.Hosted by the Davis Love Foundation, the tournament has raised over $46 million for charity since it began in 2010.Despite being in a small market, the event is a leader in charitable donations among PGA Tour fall events.
PGA Tour golf in the fall is never an afterthought on Georgia’s Golden Isles.
The majors and The Players Champions have long since been played. The FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Ryder Cup are in the books.
But there was still golf to be played in the form of FedEx Cup Fall and that second season ends this week amid the ancient oaks and sand dunes of the Sea Island Resort, surrounded by lush, expansive salt marshes and views of the St. Simons Sound.
For the 16th year, the Tour comes to Sea Island for the RSM Classic, Nov. 20-23. The early rounds at the Seaside and Plantation Courses, and the weekend wraps with the players who made the weekend cut at the Seaside Course.
The tournament has been the week before Thanksgiving since 2015, delivering a solid opening to the holiday season from St. Simons Island to Jekyll Island and from Brunswick to St. Mary’s, and beyond, with fans and volunteers coming from Jacksonville and Savannah.
And the historic resort, the Golden Isles community and the tournament clearly punch above their weight class. Glynn County’s population of around 76,000 put the tournament’s home market, according to the PGA Tour, in a group of nine similar events such as the RBC Heritage and the John Deere Classic.
The Tour ranks the RSM Classic second in that peer group behind the John Deere Classic for charitable donations. Since 2018, the RSM Classic is first among all Tour fall events for charitable donations (the total has surpassed $46 million for the history of the tournament) and it’s 10th among all 42 Tour events for charity over the same span.
RSM praised for its hands-on approach
How does the RSM Classic do it?
Tournament director Todd Thompson said it starts with a loyal title sponsor in RSM, a global firm that serves middle-market businesses with tax and consulting services.
RSM has been the driving force behind helping the tournament raise more than $46 million in charity since the tournament began in 2010, and the tournament and RSM have the longest title-sponsorship relationship of the Tour’s Fall events.
“A lot of it goes to RSM and what they do for us,” Thompson said of the company’s year-round charity efforts in which all 77 domestic offices, plus those in Canada, India and El Salvador, participate in the “Power of Love” program. “Their fundraisers have grown tremendously since 2016 and they’re all about helping and philanthropy.”
RSM offices also participate in the “Birdies Fore Love” competition, in which employees make donations to guess the number of birdies in the competition.
RSM Classic executive director Mark Love said the title sponsor efforts are buttressed by the Golden Isles community and its loyalty to the event, which has come to take pride in being the little engine that could.
“Our community is a very giving community and it’s a testament to staff, our tournament directors in the past, Todd now. John McKenzie has headed our sales staff for 16 years, establishing relationships and we have such a fantastic place,” Love said.
“We always say if we can get people here, we can keep them here,” Love went on. “Yes, we’re a very small market but we have a lot to offer in terms of the spectator experience. Because we are kind of small it sets us apart a little bit, certainly regionally, from Augusta National and The Players Championship. Certainly, St. Simons Island, the Golden Isles and the Sea Island Resort … all of that plays a factor in our ability to get people to come and enjoy it, not just from here but regionally and nationally.”
RSM Classic is a family business
The tournament is hosted by World Golf Hall of Fame member Davis Love III, the two-time Players champion and 1997 PGA champion, with the Davis Love Foundation as the sponsoring organization.
Love is the tournament host. His brother Mark is the executive director. Davis Love’s daughter Lexie Whatley is the tournament’s event and merchandise manager. His son, Dru, played in the tournament four times and now works at any number of odd jobs during tournament week.
Whatley was once spotted vacuuming the merchandise area herself after one of the RSM Classic rounds. When a joke was made that the task might be below her pay grade, she replied, “Nothing here is below anyone’s pay grade.”
Entertainment for players and their families is also a huge part of the draw. The Sea Island Resort has numerous activities for the children of Tour players and their wives, such as horseback riding, swimming, spa treatments, shopping trips and nature trails but the families also participate in the charitable efforts. One of the highlights of the week has been the Players vs. Wives Whiffle Ball game.
“Because we use two courses, it’s not an all-day thing,” Thompson said. “The players have a great locker room, the practice facilities are among the best in the world and it’s a very laid-back atmosphere.”
RSM has settled into a sweet spot
The RSM Classic’s spot on the schedule as the PGA Tour’s final event of the calendar year has turned into the ideal time. For the Sea Island Resort and the Golden Isles, the tournament has filled an empty spot on the calendar between the Florida-Georgia football game and the start of the holiday season, providing even more economic impact for the area.
The estimated annual impact is $10-$15 million, according to the Golden Isles Convention and Visitors Bureau. The telecast on Golf Channel is seen in more than 200 nations.
The weather is usually spectacular. It can get a bit chilly at the beginning and end of the day, but for those who enjoy fall conditions, the Golden Isles have been as good as it gets.
There has been only one Monday finish required, in 2016, and it wasn’t weather-related. Five players finished regulation tied, and the playoff ran into darkness. Mackenzie Hughes finished off his first Tour title the following day.
While the course is easy to walk, fans have venues near the clubhouse to eat, drink and watch football or golf on huge monitors. There’s a sports bar at the 17th tee of the Seaside Course, a sweet shop behind the 18th green for kids and a food court with everything from barbecue to seafood.
“We always tell our people in marketing that even if people aren’t that interested in golf, it’s still a great place to come and socialize,” Mark Love said. “It’s a great place to have a walk around, enjoy the food and beverage and the atmosphere.”
Several architects have their fingerprints on Sea Island
The first nine holes of the Seaside Golf Course were originally designed by Walter Travis and then completed after his death by Harry S. Colt and Charles Alison in 1929. The first renovation to the course was made by Robert Trent Jones in 1949.
In 1998, Rees Jones and Tom Fazio took Sea Island’s four nine-hole courses and redesigned them into the current Seaside and Plantation tracks.
The Fazio redesign took the Seaside nine and Marshside nine and blended them into 18 holes.
The merging of the two sides took “18 holes that didn’t match into 18 matchless holes,” Love said.
Love oversaw the renovation of the Plantation Course in 2015, which is used in the early rounds of the tournament. The Plantation Course is more tree-lined, with majestic pines and oaks.
The Seaside Course will undergo a renovation in 2026, supervised by Love Design, with the heavy lifting done by the Jacksonville-based MacCurrach Golf Course Construction. The course will close sometime in May and reopen in October in time for the 2026 RSM Classic.
Former PGA Tour player and past U.S. and British Amateur champion Steve Melnyk, who grew up on the Golden Isles, said it was long overdue for the Tour to come to Sea Island.
“When they finally came here, it showed what a quality place it was to play, what a great environment it was and even more people fell in love with the St. Simons Island community,” he said. “It’s as pretty as any golf course except for maybe Pebble Beach or Cypress Point. On the scale of what’s possible here, the tournament staff has done a great job and I think it’s like a first cousin to Harbour Town [on Hilton Head Island, S.C., the site of the RBC Heritage]. It’s a small resort community, with a very intimate setting and it’s just gorgeous here.”
The race for the top 100 ends at Sea Island
As the final Tour event of the season, the RSM Classic is crucial for players trying to retain their PGA Tour cards, and never more than this year.
The Tour reduced the exempt number of players from the top 125 on the FedEx Cup points list to the top 100, which promises to create some high drama on the weekend at the Seaside Course.
Although the Augusta National Golf Club eliminated the invitation for players who won the Tour’s fall events, there are still handsome rewards for winning the RSM Classic: A $1,262,000 first-place check, a two-year PGA Tour exemption and spots in The Players Championship and the PGA Championship.
Following the World Wide Technologies Championship in Mexico last week, the player on the No. 100 bubble is Max McGreevy with 502.61 points.
It gets tight after that. No. 101 David Lipsky is only 2.49 points behind and six other players are within 51 points, down to No. 110 Matt Kuchar.
Three players outside the top 100 are exempt through 2026 in other categories: Adam Scott (No. 103) is exempt by reach the Tour Championship in 2024; and No. 102 Tom Kim and No. 105 Billy Horschel of Ponte Vedra Beach are clear through the rest of the year off winning multiple PGA Tour events since 2023.
Four First Coast players are within range: No. 115 Sam Ryder (64.144 points behind), No. 119 Lanto Griffin (-78.391), No. 128 Ricky Castillo (-155.339) and No. 132 Alejandro Tosti (-169.172).
Who are the past RSM Classic winners? 2024: Maverick McNealy 266 (16-under) 2023: Ludvig Aberg 253 (29-under) 2022: Adam Svensson 263 (19-under) 2021: Talor Gooch 260 (22-under) 2020: Robert Streb 263 (19-under) 2019: Tyler Duncan 263 (19-under) 2018: Charles Howell III 263 (19-under) 2017: Austin Cook 261 (21-under) 2016: Mackenzie Hughes 265 (17-under) 2015: Kevin Kisner (260 (22-under) 2014: Robert Streb 266 (14-under) 2013: Chris Kirk (266 (14-under) 2012: Tommy Gainey 264 (16-under) 2011: Ben Crane 265 (15-under) 2010: Heath Slocum 266 (14-under)
