Korn Ferry Tour president Alex Baldwin said the events of the last three months aren’t in any playbook. But she’s worked tirelessly to participate in the return to golf this week with the Korn Ferry Challenge.
A few seconds after Zack Sucher of Birmingham, Alabama, and Adam Svensson of Canada hit the opening tee shots of the Korn Ferry Challenge at 7 a.m. on Thursday at the first and 10th tees of the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley Course, Alex Baldwin will permit herself a small sigh of relief.
“There will definitely be a moment to sort of reflect and acknowledge and feel some appreciation for what has gone on in getting us to that point,” said the president of the Korn Ferry Tour. “But we have to be unrelenting to continue each and every day to fulfill our 2020 season. A lot of still happening around the country. There’s an unpredictability to what the future will hold but we’re preparing to the best of our ability.”
Baldwin, who started her career in golf as a player agent for IMG, was named the Korn Ferry Tour president on Jan. 30, 2019. She is the first woman to head one of the PGA Tour’s six global tours but like the rest of the world, wasn’t quite prepared for the seismic changes from the coronavirus pandemic that would rock the world in her second year.
The last time the Korn Ferry Tour played was March 1 in Mexico. The PGA Tour, which holds the Charles Schwab Challenge this week in Fort Worth, Texas, last saw shots in the air at the first round of The Players Championship on March 12.
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The Players was canceled the next day as sports worldwide came to a screeching halt.
But almost from that point, Baldwin said she and her colleagues on the Tour’s executive team began preparing for the eventual return of the game.
That begins this week in Ponte Vedra Beach, where 156 past and aspiring PGA Tour pros will play 72 holes on the Dye’s Valley Course, then travel to St. Augustine, Florida, next week for 72 more in the King & Bear Classic June 17-20.
Thousands upon thousands of details went into reopening golf on both tours and Baldwin said the process “has been non-stop.”
There has been arranging to test around 400 players, caddies, tournament staff, Tour staff and volunteers each week as the PGA Tour is planning to compete non-stop until the week before Christmas and the Korn Ferry Tour until mid-October with the Orange County National Championship in Orlando.
The Tours also are providing charter flights and hotels to keep players and caddies within a tight “bubble” to minimize contact with those outside the tournament community each week. Players and caddies had to be educated on the myriad of details to ensure social distancing while at the same time playing a game four days in a row on courses that frequently top out over 400 acres of land.
There has been communication with health officials in their markets, the CDC, the WHO and members of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force.
Nothing has been left to chance — or so the Tour leadership hopes.
“It’s been a constant cycle of communication, an enormous amount of collaboration,” Baldwin said. “There has been a lot of listening and understanding and caring. Logistically, all the different considerations have been deal with through an incredible team effort. We have focused on the return to golf in the safest possible manner.”
Pandemic not in any playbook
It certainly isn’t what Baldwin thought her job would entail when she was promoted by commissioner Jay Monahan after serving two years as vice president of corporate partnerships. Baldwin helped the Tour land corporate partners such as Morgan Stanley, Citi, Rolex and United Airlines, and spent her first six months as the Korn Ferry Tour president negotiating the deal for the Los Angeles-based financial company to take over from Web.com as the tour’s umbrella sponsor.
The Korn Ferry Tour played six tournaments in January and February and was scheduled for a three-week break before the Chitimacha Louisiana Open.
But during that time, Baldwin watched the news and started getting an ominous feeling.
“I did anticipate there would be a disruption, the way it was starting to unfold,” she said. “I can’t say I expected us not to hit a golf ball for 103 days. I’ve joked with Jay that none of this was in the playbook. There have been a lot of twists and turns.”
Baldwin’s situation was a bit different than Monahan and his PGA Tour staff. The Korn Ferry Tour is composed mostly of young players trying to use it as the pathway to the PGA Tour, or for those who have lost their Tour status and are fighting their way back.
While Korn Ferry Tour purses are $600,000 or more, there isn’t a lot of financial security. The big equipment and endorsement contracts, and corporate outings come when they reach what they call “The Big Tour.”
And when the Korn Ferry Tour stopped, some had to take part-time jobs — such as Jared Wolfe, the No. 6 player on the 2020 points list, who sold coronavirus testing equipment to clinics.
Baldwin said her career as an agent helped her empathize with the Korn Ferry players who saw their income drop to nothing for three months.
“I absolutely think I had a unique vantage point,” she said. “I know what it’s like to represent a player who’s the first alternate in a tournament, one who’s the 25th alternate, or the one who wins, and with it comes the additional obligations and opportunities.”
She said being a mother also helps. Baldwin and her husband Eric have two children, Max and Olivia.
“Certainly being a caring and compassionate person helps,” she said. “Empathy is really important in everything we do.”
Players laud Baldwin’s communication
Korn Ferry Tour players often don’t spend enough time on the tour to get to know the leadership. But Baldwin has made an impression many of them, mainly for her listening and communication skills.
“She’s amazing. … brilliant,” said Chris Baker. “To get to this position, she’s got to be very smart and it’s hard to come in and run one of the top tours in the world. I was on the Player Advisory Council last year and spent some time with her. She does a great job listening to us, taking our ideas and putting then into play. She’s a great leader.”
Davis Riley said Baldwin inundates the players with informational emails about almost any subject that affects their professional lives.
“She does a great job of letting us know what we’re doing,” he said. “She’s a great representative for the Korn Ferry Tour.”
Extensive sports background
Baldwin has been immersed in sports since she was in high school in Connecticut, where she played basketball, field hockey and lacrosse. She was on the rowing team at Bates College in Maine – and is a member of the Jacksonville Rowing Club – where she graduated with a degree in political science.
The highlight of her week is a family tradition: nine holes of golf with her son.
After working at IMG’s golf division from 1992-2004, Baldwin joined Fenway Sports Management, where she worked for Monahan and helped sell sponsorships and consulted clients for the Tour’s event at the TPC Boston.
She was later a consulting executive at CAA Sports before rejoining Monahan at the PGA Tour.
“I was at IMG when they represented Tiger, Vijay, David Duval, Karrie Webb. … it was the height of golf’s ascension, that moment in time that I feel golf redefined its trajectory,” she said. “I was young, a kid, and I was lucky enough to have a front seat to see it all happen.”
But she wanted to broaden her experiences and instead of representing players, she wanted to work with tournaments and corporate sponsors.
“I’m very passionate about the industry,” she said. “And working for Jay Monahan, who has this incredible combination of intellect, business sense and compassion. … it’s made him a true leader but also a colleague, someone who looks out for every single person involved with the Tour as if they were in his family.”
Baldwin is thankful for the re-opening of golf in one key regard: she and the rest of the Tour are back to their main task.
“We have to remember we’re running a business, to maintain opportunities for our players,” she said. “That’s the human side of this that carries us forward.”
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Speaking of the putting surfaces, he said the plan is to get them rolling about 12 in the Stimpmeter, which is moderately fast. But the Valley course has relatively flat greens and players at this level don’t mind speedy putts when there isn’t much undulation.
