Earlier this year, Richard Smith, the president and CEO of airline and international at FedEx, joined PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, Rory McIlroy and NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin in Charlotte, North Carolina, for an evening celebrating the delivery company’s 50th anniversary and the launch of its Founder’s Fund, which benefits entrepreneurial veterans.
During the event, held at the golf-themed nightspot Puttery in which McIlroy is an investor, Smith – the son of company founder Fred Smith – offered a short synopsis of how far FedEx, which he called “a scrappy little company” when it was born in 1973, has come since its creation.
FedEx began, Smith said, with “a few hundred employees, 186 packages on the first night, service to 25 cities in 14 aircraft. Today we move 16 million shipments (daily). We have more than 530,000 team members around the world. We have more than 700 aircraft, service to 220 countries and territories.”
FedEx also has its name on the PGA Tour’s biggest prize, the FedEx Cup playoffs which began in 2007 and will this year award an $18 million bonus to its champion before bumping the big prize to $25 million next year.
It is the outgrowth of a relationship between the tour and FedEx that began in 1986 at what had been called the St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tennessee, where the industry-altering company is based.
Working together, the tour and FedEx have raised $65 million for charity, Monahan said, through what is now the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the three-event FedEx Cup playoff series. The working agreement was renewed in 2017 for 10 more years, making it one of the longest-running agreements in sports.
“We share common values. They have a deep commitment to charity, a deep commitment to philanthropy,” Monahan said. “They are a great community partner. They are everywhere. They are ubiquitous. They quietly and humbly do so much to give back.”
“It’s been a great event for an incredible cause. We came together for that great cause in 1986, and in 2007 we launched the FedEx Cup, which was all about competition. Really trying to create a season-ending champion, bringing together the greatest players in golf every year.” – Richard Smith
In the process, FedEx has helped reshape the PGA Tour.
“It’s been a great event for an incredible cause,” Smith said. “We came together for that great cause in 1986, and in 2007 we launched the FedEx Cup, which was all about competition. Really trying to create a season-ending champion, bringing together the greatest players in golf every year.”
No one may appreciate what FedEx has done more directly than McIlroy, the only three-time winner of the FedEx Cup.
McIlroy has banked $61,216,682 in FedEx Cup playoff money alone, approximately $20 million more than Dustin Johnson, who ranks second in FedEx earnings.
“Winning FedEx Cups, it’s not as if you can compare yourself to previous generations, because they never had that. For me, really my generation and to be the first one to three is pretty cool. To basically do something none of my contemporaries has been able to do is pretty cool. I view it as a pretty big feather in my cap,” McIlroy said.
Beyond the money, which has been sport-changing, the creation of the FedEx Cup playoffs restructured the PGA Tour. It began as a four-event series but has been whittled to three events, this year changing again with only the top 70 players in points advancing to the playoffs, down from the top 125 in previous years.
“The FedEx Cup in general, playing for something at the end … I always felt before the FedEx Cup was thought of, the Tour Championship wasn’t really the crescendo of the season,” McIlroy said. “Going through the playoffs and getting to the Tour Championship, it feels like we’re playing for something all the way through the years, which is great.”
The tour has been willing to adjust the format in an effort to make it more compelling, ultimately settling on a weighted start in the Tour Championship for the 30 players who advance. The points leader entering the final week starts at 10-under par at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, with the second-place player at 8-under and laddering down from there.
Last year, McIlroy started the final round six strokes behind Scottie Scheffler and chased him down to win by one stroke.
“To just consider it good timing seems unfair on my part. I think I’d like to think that I play good enough golf over the years to give myself a chance a bunch of times,” McIlroy said of his three FedEx Cup championships. “It’s a combination of both. I’ve gotten hot at the right time. It’s also course fit. East Lake is a course I’ve enjoyed over the years, and it’s always nice knowing when you go back there, you’re always going to have a good shot to win.”
In the universe of golf’s biggest events, the FedEx Cup playoff has created its own category. It defines more than one good week.
“To me it’s the single hardest trophy in our sport to win because it’s a season-long competition,” Monahan said. “The players talk about that. You look at the names on the trophy and it certainly reflects it.”