Hollis Cavner's Crazy Covid Year
Hollis Cavner
“I just drove in from Florida and I’m exhausted,” said Hollis Cavner as he climbed down from his exquisite motor home. He was in the parking lot of The Royal Golf Club in Lino Lakes, MN, a golf course he owns with others, one week before the 3M Championship PGA Tour event at the end of July. As the tournament director of four PGA Tour events including the 3M Championship, consultant on another and operating three Champions Tour events, nobody is deeper into the PGA Tour than Hollis Cavner. With Covid raging, Hollis’ world has been tossed into a blender and turned on high.
It was Thursday, March 12, 2020, the first day of play at the Tournament Players Championship in Jacksonville, FL. The Valspar PGA Tournament, one of Hollis’ events, was to be played the next week at Innisbrook Resort GC in Palm Harbor, Florida. Hollis’s phone rang at 5:00 AM. It was Jay Monahan, Commissioner of the PGA Tour, asking Hollis to come to a 6:00 AM meeting regarding the pandemic.
At the meeting was Monahan, along with other top executives of the PGA Tour. The NBA had suspended their season the day before. He was told the PGA Tour would follow the recommendations of the CDC regarding the pandemic. “They asked questions like, what would I do if we did this or that? I left the meeting with no idea what was to going happen responding to the pandemic.”
However there had been noise that week about whether the tournament would be played.
“At 4:00 PM that day they cancelled the golf tournament, along with the tournament the next week.” Eventually five more events would be cancelled. Several more would voluntarily cancel. Eventually 11 PGA Tour events would not be played.
After Hollis’ team had worked for an entire year, four days before the start of the Valspar Tournament week, the event was cancelled. In addition, another of his events four weeks later, the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, NC was cancelled.
Thirteen Champions Tour events were cancelled including Hollis’s end of May Insperity Invitational in Houston. His Champions Tour events in Sioux Falls mid-September and the Boca Raton Championship in October are still scheduled.
“I got in the car and immediately drove to Innisbrook. Everything was in place at the Valspar,” he said. “The entire place had to be taken down. 2000 volunteers were ready, vendors, sponsor tents, bleachers and all the events that go along with the tournament. We had to get Sherwin Williams (who owns Valspar) to stop all the pro-am players from coming to Florida. We needed to give Innisbrook back their resort. We cancelled 500 rooms.”
“We entered into months of negotiations with the PGA Tour. It was the most intense business meetings I have ever been involved with.” Hollis paused and added, “Every sponsor got their money back. Part of the negotiation was how to protect the charities. There was no playbook.”
“In the end the message from the PGA Tour was the charities would be whole, the sponsors would be whole. It was to be what was best for them.”
“The PGA Tour was a tremendous partner. The staff handled themselves perfectly,” said Hollis.
Pro Link Sports, Hollis’ company employs 150 people. “No person was laid off and everybody came out whole,” he said. “I didn’t sleep for weeks.”
With the amount of money the PGA Tour raises for local charities those recipients count on the tournaments to continue their support. Talking with Hollis it rings clear his top concerns are the sponsors and charities.
Gary Hendrickson, president of Valspar Corporation prior to its acquisition by Sherwin Williams, had praise for Cavner. “He’s the best tournament director on the PGA Tour. He supports and fights for the sponsor to give the greatest value for the sponsor dollar.”
In addition to running PGA Tour tournaments, Pro Link Sports advises clients on sponsor investments in golf and runs two collegiate tournaments in Florida and Georgia.
With the Valspar and Wells Fargo events cancelled in March, questions focused on when the PGA Tour would start up again.
There was light at the end of the tunnel. The Tour would resume with the Charles Schwab Challenge in Dallas, June 11-14, with the relaxed Covid rules in Texas. This took the place of the Canadian Open which had been cancelled.
The PGA Tour schedule with its cancellations was reconstructed.
The Governor of Minnesota’s gave his blessing, allowing the 3M Championship to be played the last week in July, however with no spectators.
We got a really tough break with the schedule,” said Hollis. The 3M Championship was wedged in between the Jack Nicklaus Memorial Tournament and a World Golf Championship designated event, the Fed-Ex St Jude Invitational in Memphis. This was followed by the rescheduled PGA Championship in San Francisco.
Few top players want to play four weeks in a row. Being surrounded by top events, the 3M Championship was the odd man out on many player schedules. It was reflected in the field Hollis was able to attract. Even with the great relationships he has with the players, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Tony Finau were the only big names he was able to attract.
Eventually the PGA Tour and the players will even things out. Hollis takes care of the players, his sponsors and all of the spectators. They will not forget the sacrifice he made.
With Hollis’ positive, smiling attitude he would make the best of it, but the tough news would not end.
“I just got a call from the Tour,” he said as we chatted one week prior to the 3M Championship. “There will be no pro-am next week.”
The blades in Hollis’s financial blender were slicing up the tournament. “That’s a loss of two to three million dollars,” he said. It was a tough pill to swallow.
“I have nothing but admiration for 3M,” Hollis said. “They came forward and said the charitable contributions expected from the tournament would be met.”
With no pro-am at the 3M, Hollis created made for TV events that several of the Tour players participated in. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised for charity.
“We’re going to have a TV show next week,” he said. “No crowds, no sponsor tents, no cheers, just a TV show.”
All of the players and anyone else that comes in contact with the players is tested four times during the week. All testing is done at the Sanford health truck that follows the tour. “We all wear masks and gloves,” Hollis said.
It was a good week for golf at the 3M Championship with Hollis taking one for the team. Michael Thompson bested Adam Long and Tony Finau as he won his first tournament in seven years.
Covid has destroyed the year for Hollis. The loss of gross revenue to Pro Link Sports must have reached over $100,000,000. Fortunately with a reserve fund, the PGA Tour has stepped up to support sponsors, charities, thus Pro Link Sports.
“I only travel in this motor home. It was Mark Calcavecchia’s. I leased it from him. No airplanes or hotels. I can’t afford to get sick. I live by Zoom calls.” Unlike many people who are not traveling, Hollis still is, just by a different method.
An announcement in July threw another wrench into his company wheelhouse. The Ryder Cup was postponed for a year.
Why would this affect Pro Link Sports? It’s a little complicated. With the Ryder Cup being pushed back to 2021, the previously scheduled 2021 Presidents Cup Match would be pushed back to 2022.
Where was the 2021 Presidents Cup Match to be played? At Quail Hollow Golf Club, site of Hollis’ Wells Fargo event. There is a contract between Quail Hollow and the PGA tour that calls for a PGA Tour event every year at Quail Hollow. With the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow in 2021, there was to be no Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte.
As a result of the Presidents Cup being at Quail Hollow in 2021 Hollis had relocated the Wells Fargo Championship to Washington DC. He had hired a staff with boots on the ground selling sponsorships and tickets.
Suddenly with the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow being pushed back to 2022 he had to rehire a staff to sell the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship back in Charlotte.
“When will the PGA Tour get back to a sense of normalcy?” I asked.
He paused and reflected. “When Augusta, (the Masters), comes back, we’ll come back. They’ll do it right. If they have spectators, so will the tour. I also think younger people want sporting events. Younger people are going out.”
With crisis and challenges coming at him like water out of a firehose, Hollis Cavner remains positive and smiling. “We’ll be ok,” he said.
Hollis Cavner has been an asset to golf in Minnesota and the PGA Tour. I admire his philanthropy, his support of local charities through PGA Tour events and his determination to bring the PGA Tour back to Minnesota. Hollis Cavner succeeds because of caring for people in A Life In Golf.
Hollis’ Ride
