When Toshiba Classic Week begins Monday, it will mark the end of two eras.
The first is the tournament’s name. The second is the tenure of Chairman Ira Garbutt, who filled the post for 10 years—a run that will likely never be matched.
The 23rd edition of the senior circuit showcase will be the last under title sponsor Toshiba Corp.
“Due to some changes in their corporate situation, they will not be continuing after this year,” Executive Director Jeff Purser told the Business Journal.
The tournament was established in 1995 as the Toshiba Senior Classic at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa. It moved the following year to Newport Beach Country Club, steps from the shoreline and Pacific Coast Highway, where it carried the distinction as the longest-running venue on the PGA Champions tour with the longest-running title sponsor.
Tokyo-based Toshiba is facing a cash crunch originating with its bankrupt U.S. nuclear energy unit and other underperforming business lines. Late last year the conglomerate agreed to sell its lucrative flash memory unit for $17 billion to a consortium of buyers, including Bain Capital, Apple Inc. and Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology Inc. The deal has yet to close.
Toshiba, according to Purser, has been an upstanding title sponsor, providing the classic nearly $60 million over two decades. It funds the $1.8 million purse and $270,000 first prize.
“It’s rare that you have a title sponsor for 20 years,” he said.
The Toshiba Classic Scholarship Program has provided over $324,000 to students and $1 million worth of Toshiba laptops to local high schools and the elderly. The gifts came as the company struggled to maintain legacy operations. The Business Journal reported in 2016 that Toshiba’s Irvine-headquartered U.S. electronics unit exited the consumer PC market.
Tournament officials will announce a new title sponsor at a March 9 VIP reception at the Newport Beach Country Club ballroom.
Finding new sponsors and retaining existing ones is a year-round job for Purser in his 20th year at the helm.
“We’re trying to create value for them so we don’t have attrition,” he said.
New silver and bronze sponsors this year include Blue Shield of California, the Los Angeles Chargers, PAU Maui Vodka, Kaiser Aluminum and Jacuzzi.
The tournament will showcase more than 200 corporate sponsors, including presenting sponsor Kingston and gold sponsor Microsemi Corp. The Aliso Viejo-based chipmaker is hosting the third annual Military Appreciation Day on March 10, when 3,000 military family members receive free admission. A $50,000 donation will be made to various charities, including Open Hearts for Purple Hearts, the Marine Core Scholarship Foundation and the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation.
“As a publicly held company with operations spanning the globe, our team’s commitment to customers, partners and the local community is vital to our success,” said Chief Executive and Chairman James Peterson. “Microsemi’s involvement with the Toshiba Golf Classic provides a unique opportunity to leverage these important relationships.”
More than 70,000 fans are projected to attend the tournament this week and book more than 3,000 hotel rooms. Newport Beach and other coastal Orange County locales will also get national exposure, NBC Sports Group’s Golf Channel broadcasting the last few hours of the tournament live each day.
A 2008 report put the economic impact at $30 million, a figure that’s likely higher a decade removed from the depths of the recession.
Newport Beach and surrounding cities missed that windfall last year when the tournament was scratched due to scheduling conflicts.
Hoag Charity Sports, a unit of Hoag Hospital Foundation, produces the Toshiba Classic and generates more than $1 million annually for Hoag institutes, including the Mary & Dick Allen Diabetes Center.
Proceeds have funded more than 45 other charities.
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian is near and dear to Garbutt, who credits the Newport Beach hospital for twice saving his life. He had open-heart valve surgery there in 2000, and nine years later it calcified. The valve, which split, had to be replaced in three days.
“It was really bad,” said Garbutt, who was rushed to Hoag and given an echocardiography.
He was prepped for surgery and operated on the next day, this time receiving an Edwards Lifesciences valve. Sometime later he showed the valve serial card to Edwards Chief Executive Michael Mussallem, and the two shared a laugh.
More recently his wife, Heather, had major spine surgery at Hoag.
Tenure
Garbutt took the chairman title in 2008, when many financial companies declined to highlight their brands as sponsors to avoid any consumer backlash related to government bailouts.
The tournament fought off other challenges through the years, including hosting the event for two years without a clubhouse when the country club underwent a $50 million renovation.
“Not too many PGA tournaments are held without a clubhouse,” said Garbutt, president of Newport Beach-based Certified Financial Group Inc.
And there was the multiyear regulatory effort to turn the tournament into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity, when he not only chaired board meetings but kept the minutes. The undertaking helped Hoag establish a sports charity arm and direct other philanthropic efforts and gift planning.
“Over the last 10 years I’m as impressed of what we overcame as much as what we accomplished,” said Garbutt, who will recount some of the anecdotes in a speech this weekend for his induction into the Hoag Charity Sports Hall of Fame.
Garbutt lights up when he talks about handing the trophy to the winner each year, a list that includes World of Golf Hall of Famers and two-time tournament winners Berhard Langer and Fred Couples.
And the 18 holes he played with two-time major champion Ben Crenshaw, who read his putts on every hole.
Garbutt’s daughter, a FBI special agent, met her husband at the tournament. He attended her graduation at the Training Academy in Quantico, Va., where he shook the hand of acting director Robert Mueller.
He describes his tenure with the Toshiba Classic as the “volunteer opportunity of a lifetime.”
He’s only its second chairman, succeeding Chapman University business professor and former Deloitte Senior Partner Hank Adler, who also held the post for a decade.
Purser said, “We probably won’t have anyone serve as long as Hank and Ira have as chairman ever again.”
