Hawaii’s professional golf tournaments mean a windfall for local charities

Most memories of this year’s Sony Open in Hawaii revolve around the record six-hole playoff at Waialae Country Club. Patton Kizzire ultimately collected the $1.1 million first prize when James Hahn’s 8-foot par putt lipped out.

What Corbett Kalama remembers is the $1.1 million Friends of Hawaii Charities distributed to 140 local charities last month.

“We told that community that their lives have value,” Kalama, the FOHC president, says simply.

That substantial act of charitable giving is not simple. It involves thousands of volunteers, sponsors, fans and players, and immense organization.

It all paints a vivid image of what Kalama has been calling “golf’s soul and value” since he came to last year’s Hawaii Golf Industry Conference.

“That day, I thought ‘This is it, this is real.’ Golf is far beyond chasing those little white golf balls,” Kalama recalls. “It’s not just Sony, it’s the seniors and the LPGA that come here, and all these people. People should look at golfers a different way. They are contributors to Hawaii.”

His early image of golf was based on growing up across from Buzz’s Lanikai and paddling to Mid-Pacific Country Club so he could dive in and recover many lost golf balls. He sold those for a nickel to Buzz Schneider, who sold them to MPCC.

Kalama retired as an executive vice president after 31 years at First Hawaiian Bank and is still a director for its foundation. Five years ago he took a position as vice president of real estate investments and community affairs with the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc.

He is also a Kamehameha Schools trustee and director of the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation. He has held many other positions as well, including canoe coach.

FOHC was formed in 1999, in part, to help Hawaii keep the PGA Tour event Waialae has hosted since 1965. It works in partnership with Sony to allow the tournament to be structured like most tour events — as a non-profit organization that donates all net proceeds to charity.

The PGA’s six tours donated a record $180 million to charitable causes last year and claimed an “all-time total” of $2.65 billion in January.

FOHC and Sony have donated about $18 million, with a huge assist from the Weinberg Foundation, which became the Sony Open’s charity partner in 2000 and has been matching funds since.

Kalama helped develop that partnership. He became an FOHC board member to ensure an equitable money distribution structure was in place, along with a screening process to help organizations “stay on track with their own mission” and make the grant-writing process consistent.

“It was a good opportunity to expand the work I was doing,” Kalama says. “It has grown tremendously. It is an opportunity for us to give a voice to part of the community that sometimes doesn’t have a voice. And to tell them that people are listening, too. It’s a constant reminder of how blessed we all are.”

This year, Sony’s $1.1 million went to 140 charity grant recipients that are “community-based, non-profit organizations which operate programs for Hawaii’s children, women, elderly and its impoverished.” Since golf inspires the grants, there is also help for aspiring golfers. Grants run from about $1,500 to $25,000.

Recipients include groups as varied as Aloha Harvest, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Hawaii Bishop Museum, Caring for Hawaii Neonates, Frank De Lima’s Student Enrichment Program Inc., Friends of Waialua Robotics, MADD Hawaii and Surfrider Spirit Session.

The PGA Tour and Sony extended their partnership through 2022 in January. The next Sony Open is Jan. 10-13 and the four-year commitment includes a new annual charity distribution goal of $1.2 million.

Nothing about that will be simple, again. But Kalama has no doubt it will happen. He has come a long way from thinking of golfers only as folks who can afford to hit golf balls into the water.

“I viewed golf as a sport for the affluent,” Kalama says, “but I didn’t see they were also able to pull people together and get them involved in community activities.

“Never judge a book by its cover. People who golf are sitting on boards and funding internships. The golfing community is not acknowledged and I saw that at a young age. People involved in golf are in leadership positions in our community and they have embraced responsibility.”