Magic Happened: Chapter 15

Behind the Magic

Chapter 15: Behind the Magic

Just beyond the dawn of the Deere Run era, a pair of Deere and Company loans proved to be savvy investments on the long-term future of the John Deere Classic.

The first of these loans actually was Clair Peterson, who honed his marketing skills over 27 years in Deere’s in-house marketing agency, never losing the passion for golf he’d developed as the teenaged caddie-turned-club champion.

In the summer of 2002, Peterson emerged as the best candidate to replace Kym Hougham, who in late May was hired as tournament director for a high-profile event due to launch the following spring in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It was an offer Hougham couldn’t refuse, especially considering the Wachovia Championship immediately would offer the second-largest purse of any non-major event on TOUR and would be contested at Quail Hollow — a toney club that shared 19 members with Augusta National.

Yet, Charlotte’s gain was the John Deere Classic’s gain as well.

Over his first 18 years at the Classic helm, Peterson’s strong marketing instincts and intrinsic understanding of Deere and Company’s iconic brand and culture helped create a synergy between sponsor and tourney few TOUR events can replicate.

Appointed Deere’s director of golf events marketing when the company entered the golf turf equipment business, Peterson gained early experience directing tournaments by helping create the John Deere Team Championship. The series of annual events were a means of introducing Deere’s new turf equipment line to key influencers at golf courses and clubs across the country. Teams consisting of the head professional, golf course superintendent, club manager and board president from participating courses vied in 35 to 40 regional events each year, with winners advancing to the national finals.

The John Deere Team Championship continues today and has helped the golf and turf division attract and retain buyers. It may have had its most significant impact in 1990, when the director of golf at the TPC Woodlands, home of the Houston Open, led a team into regional competition at Houston Country Club. Already a fan of John Deere green, Duke Butler used the occasion to survey the Deere turf equipment on display. He called upon his favorable impression six years later when he proposed the pivotal union of Deere equipment and the TOUR’s TPC network.

Magic.

In his golf marketing role, Peterson became the sponsor’s liaison to the tournament when the John Deere Classic came into being, and he worked alongside Hougham, Weibring, and others throughout the construction of the golf course. He played a key role in the archeological survey that protected the Hopewell burial mounds. And it was Peterson who named each of the Deere Run holes and outlined the history those names celebrate on markers at every tee.

In the summer of 2002, Peterson was a member of the committee charged with finding Hougham’s replacement. He was, at least, until the outgoing tournament director looked across the table at an early meeting and suggested he apply.

Two challenges confronted Peterson’s candidacy, however. The first was a family circumstance that required him to remain a Deere employee due to insurance considerations.

The second? Peterson was too good at his job.

“Clair was not a given,” said Mark Kilmer, the 2002 volunteer tourney chair who headed the search. “He did such a great job representing Deere and the branding, we didn’t know if we wanted to screw that up.”

Ultimately, of course, Peterson’s familiarity with the sponsor was among the chief reasons he stood head and shoulders above some 80 other applicants.

Remaining an employee of Deere and Company was not such a hurdle, either.

“Deere agreed I would be on loan, much as they would loan an employee to other not-for-profits like Renew Moline, or the United Way, things like that,” Peterson explained. “There was no time limit attached to the loaned-employee promise, but it was clear I would report to the tournament board.”

He remains on loan today, an arrangement unique to the TOUR, and one that has paid dividends several times over for both Deere and the tournament.

“That is pretty unique and pretty awesome,” noted Zach Johnson. “You have somebody who’s vested in the company running the show. What that says about John Deere speaks volumes. They have truly taken ownership of their tournament, and I think that is so cool and unique.”

Sam Allen — the former Evans scholar and future chair, president and CEO of Deere and Company — was a member of Deere’s senior team when he was appointed to replace Peterson as the sponsor’s representative on the tourney’s executive committee. He was the right man in the right place at the right time in the fall of 2002, when the future of the tournament and TPC Deere Run both were in jeopardy and the second critical loan investment came into play.

Although Deere Run was winning unanimous praise from visiting pros, the TOUR’s original business projections for the golf course operation had been built on a late-1990s Tiger-fueled golf boom that failed to carry over to the 21st Century. Despite being ranked eighth among new upscale golf courses in America by Golf Digest in 2000, Deere Run continually failed to generate the kind of income needed to meet its TOUR pro forma.

Competition from six existing Quad Cities country clubs had impeded the growth of memberships. And a large disparity between the QC area’s beyond-reasonable public course fees and the prices big city visitors expected to pay at a top-end destination golf course left management struggling for daily-fee business.

By 2002, Deere Run was losing money at an alarming rate, and Deere and Company was feeling the pinch because payments had ceased on the considerable sum the company had loaned the TOUR to build the course.

“It just wasn’t going to work,” Allen said. But not working simply wasn’t an option. Deere owned the land, which was leased to a concern called TPC of Illinois for $1 per year. In turn, the TPC of Illinois contracted with the TPC of Ponte Vedra, a PGA TOUR subsidiary and the network umbrella, to manage the facility.

The upshot of that complicated arrangement, Allen said, was the TPC of Illinois could default on the loan, walk away and leave Deere and Company with a tournament-less golf course to either operate, sell or shutter.

Allen arranged a meeting with Finchem in Florida, and together they arrived at a solution. Deere would forgive the course construction loans, and in exchange, the TOUR would make Deere and Company the exclusive equipment supplier for all its TPC courses, a significant change from the official supplier description that was part of the landmark 1997 agreement. In addition, John Deere Credit would finance all TOUR purchases of Deere equipment and John Deere Landscapes would be the TPC network’s official landscape supplier.

“By forgiving that whole loan and going down this path, we took more of a 10-plus-year view,” Allen said. “Over that long period of time, the payback would be there — both from the equipment they purchased but also clearly the brand reinforcement supplying equipment to the TOUR provides us.”

Deere and the TOUR announced the reshaped agreement in February of 2003, along with a four-year extension on the original nine-year tournament title sponsorship. Not only did the extension add four years to the life of the John Deere Classic, the equipment piece of the new contract ran through 2014, hinting at an even longer window of certainty for the event.

With Peterson on loan at the Stone House and the long-term future of Deere Run secured, Deere and Company has spent the last 15 years leveraging the John Deere Classic in ways that are lauded across the PGA TOUR.

At the TOUR’s annual meetings in November of 2019, the JDC received the award for Best Title Sponsor Integration for a second straight year, as well as The Most Engaged Community award for a record seventh time in 10 years.

In presenting the awards, Andy Pazder, the TOUR’s chief tournaments and competitions officer, noted, “The tournament committee and title sponsor should be extremely proud of their collaborative efforts as they continue to be a model for engaging with their community.”

The John Deere Classic could be a model for how collaborative title sponsorships should work, Hougham agreed, except other events lack the critical advantage of being a small-town event with a Fortune 100 company as its leading corporate citizen.

“I think it’s apples to oranges, only because the QC is a relatively small market and Deere is the Quad Cities,” he said. “It’s easier to be hands-on because of all the resources that are two miles down the road from the golf course.”

Barry Cronin — the JDC media director who formerly worked with the Motorola Corporation when it sponsored the Western Open from 1994 through 1999 — recognizes a similar advantage.

“It’s really hard to compare,” he said of the reasons the large and historically successful Chicago-based event has had five title sponsors since Deere and Company joined the TOUR in 1998. “Deere is a massive, massive corporation in a small community. And their commitment to civic responsibility is massive. A lot of these companies talk about it. But they live it here, and it’s really real.”

Today’s John Deere Classic is a great deal more polished than the Quad Cities Opens of Ed McMahon era and beyond. Yet, it a retains that folksy Quad Cities feel because it built and supported by a volunteer force of 2,200 that consists of Quad Cities folks, close to 500 Deere employees and retirees among them.

Of course, the communal impact is best evidenced by a Birdies for Charity program that helps hundreds of mostly local organizations work real, human magic for friends and neighbors, many in need.

“At the end of the day, that charitable impact is what this is all about,” said Mara Downing, whose many assignments as a Deere and Company VP include leading the John Deere Foundation, which itself contributes more than $5 million annually to Quad Cities causes as well as $13 million around the world each year.

Of course, the Quad Cities is defined by more than Deere and Company, and the John Deere Classic is, too. But, unlike in its earliest years, the tournament is more than a homespun party because it simply must be. That was a given in 1996 when Hougham, Butler, and Todd Nicholson sat down with Combs, Plunkett, and Peterson.

“Deere was the only title sponsor in the Quad Cities that could have pulled this off, that could have saved that golf tournament,” Hougham said. “So, we all owe them a debt of gratitude. I think that the TOUR has just changed a lot.”

Indeed, the TOUR is light years beyond the era of Miller Brewing Company paying $60,000 to put its name on the Lite Quad Cities Open. That check didn’t even pay the freight then. Today, title sponsorship requires a massive investment that needs a significant business return to sustain in the long term.

Entering its 22^nd year with the John Deere Classic, Deere and Company trails only Honda and AT&T for the longest title sponsor relationship on the PGA TOUR. Deere’s investment only starts with the purse, which will be $6.2 million in 2020. Title sponsors also are committed to purchasing commercial time on TV broadcasts across the TOUR schedule. In 2019, Deere also sponsored The Family Fun Zone at a cost of $100,000; purchased more the $1 million in pro-am spots to entertain its clients; assumed the administrative costs of the Birdies for Charity program at a cost of $200,000; and, through the John Deere Foundation, supplied the $325,000 in matching funds for the Bonus Fund.

Beyond the Classic, Deere and Company also has invested heavily in youth golf — with Downing, a former St. Ambrose collegiate golf All-American, in the lead. Deere has committed $1 million over the next five years to help grow First Tee programs in the Quad Cities, Des Moines, and Raleigh, North Carolina. The company also supports an annual national all-girls golf academy and created and directs the Power for Good Scholarship contest. The latter annually awards $5,000 scholarships and a chance to play in the JDC pro-am to three First Tee members from across the country who best explain how and why they give back in their communities.

Allen retired as the Deere and Company President and CEO in 2019 after a decade in both leadership roles. He remained as chair entering 2020 and his imprint on the John Deere Classic is significant. Throughout his tenure, Allen continually stressed the importance of promoting and protecting Deere’s carefully built brand through the tournament.

“This is not the Quad City Classic sponsored by John Deere,” he said. “It is the John Deere Classic, so therefore it is much more directly tied to the brand. If it’s done the right way and continues to become stronger and stronger, it just elevates the brand, which I think is what has happened.”

It truly has, and in a myriad of rich and imaginative ways.

Tee markers featuring John Deere tractors, bulldozers, and utility vehicles in miniature are among the most talked-about on TOUR and, starting in 1999, set a standard for other tournaments to try and emulate.

From the first days at Deere Run, every word of signage at the tournament has been in Deere and Company’s signature font, and every ounce of paint has come from the approved Deere and Company palette. In fact, when Deere changed its font book in 2017, the company paid to have all of the tournament signage recreated to match.

As any good marketer would, Peterson can wax rhapsodic about redesigning the tournament logo early-on in order to more closely match Deere’s own, and to ensure the iconic leaping deer provides a subliminal pitch for the sponsor every time it is shown on a network TV broadcast.

The Big Dig, meanwhile, is among the most imaginative family entertainment events on TOUR, and certainly one of the most popular with the golfers’ children. Hosted annually at the Deere Demo Site in Coal Valley, the Dig is a multi-acre sandbox come to life. There, kids big and small — some of the former having multiple PGA TOUR wins on their resume — get to drive tractors, earthmovers, excavators, dozers and other heavy equipment at a cookout that ends with a first-class fireworks display.

Sean O’Hair had won almost $24 million in his career entering the 2020 season, including the $720,000 check he pocketed for the first of his four career wins at Deere Run in 2005. But he couldn’t help but gulp and ponder the price tag when his then 7-year-old son got behind the wheel of a 50,000-pound dozer at the 2017 Tuesday night Dig. “This is the night my kids look forward to all year,” said the beaming father of four.

Nearby, Scott and Jennifer Stallings’ 5-year-old son was stepping into the driver’s seat of an “escalator.” At least that’s what he called the Deere-built excavator. “As soon as we leave, he’ll talk about it for the next 340-some days,” Jennifer said. “Scott comes because he loves the course and he loves the tournament. But the family comes because of the Big Dig. This is incredible. Everyone talks about this event all year long.”

Like the tee markers, the brand-precise signage, and the logo reconfigured just-so, video snippets from the Big Dig show well on the annual telecasts on CBS and The Golf Channel, both of which extend Deere’s brand to 240 countries around the world.

Beman often watches the event he won twice, and the idea of four days of two-hour telecasts sending countless John Deere Country tributes live to a global audience? Well, that’s just music to the old visionary’s ears.

What Beman never could have envisioned, Peterson points out, is the 40 million “hits” on social media posts showing patrons standing in line to take selfies in front of a nearly one-ton driver head attached to a 470G John Deere excavator at the 2018 JDC. A year later, multiple Instagram videos went viral showing putts being struck by a 325-pound, built-to-scale Ping Anser putter head measuring more than 60 feet, heel to toe, and attached to the arm of a Deere 17G excavator. The uniquely interactive “advertisement” was remarkably effective and even made a segment of the Saturday CBS telecast, with lead interviewer Amanda Balionis “sinking” a putt at the wheel of the excavator. Five separate videos featuring the giant putter got more than 700,000 views on Instagram alone and they continue to surface on other social mediums.

The innovative digital outreach is among the many new ways Deere is leveraging its tournament sponsorship to build returns on its investment it could not have envisioned 20 years before.

The Monday pro-am now is strictly an event for current and potential golf and turf clientele, including an increasing number from Europe and other overseas markets. In 2019, Carlos Aragones, John Deere European turf sales and marketing manager, was accompanied by six teams from top-end courses in Europe who participated in events surrounding the tourney.

Aragones said the tournament is helping his division gain traction in the European markets. Deere is an equipment partner for Gleneagles, PGA Catalunya and Quinta do Lago golf courses in Scotland, Spain and Portugal, among others, and is the official supplier for the Ladies European Tour. In 2019, Deere was a partner with the Solheim Cup at Gleneagles. In 2018, Aragones had serious discussions with the R&A about Deere becoming the turf equipment supplier to courses on the Open Championship rotation, including fabled St. Andrews.

“We see the value of this event, and we have not been leveraging it in all the ways we could,” Aragones said, hinting of more opportunities to come. “Golf is an international language to socialize, to do business and to build long-lasting relationships.”

Downing said the tournament’s business impact crosses all Deere divisions, from ag to heavy construction and forestry, in addition to golf and turf.

In 2019, the company entertained 800 clients, some who participated in one of the two pro-ams at the Classic or a more laidback Saturday morning affair offsite at Crow Valley. Others enjoyed Deere’s hospitality while watching golf. Many visited the world headquarters to view a presentation or attend a banquet. Some visited factories in the area.

“It’s a really important week for us in terms of being able to connect with not only current customers but prospective customers,” Downing said. “And contrary to what most folks might think, this is not a week where we’re trying to sell, sell, sell. This is about saying thank you and introducing more audiences to the John Deere brand and to our culture. It’s about learning more about the company and who we are.”

The bottom line is that the business-savvy organization that was unsure it could find a single business reason to sponsor the tournament in 1996 continues to find many new levels of return all these years later.

“In 2005, it had gone a long way from 2000,” Allen noted. “You got to 2010 and it improved a lot more. 2015 it improved even more than that. And then last year it was again an all-time best, in my opinion. It continues to reinforce the brand in a lot of unique ways.

“Our aspiration for the future is every five years, we come back and say, ‘Man this thing has just gotten bigger and better.’”

Which is to say, that while nothing is ever certain in uncertain times, as we look back upon 50 magical years of the John Deere Classic, the future looks bright as well.

Magic.

(This content, first published in 2021, is shared with the permission of the Quad City Golf Classic Charitable Foundation. Please consider a donation to Birdies for Charity.)