Crossville Lowers Sponsorship Amount For Two Golf Tournaments

Crossville will continue sponsoring two state championship golf tournaments but at a discounted price.

Three-year contracts for the Tennessee Women’s Open and Senior Men’s Open expired last year. Mayor James Mayberry said the city’s budget has $10,000 allocated for each event, a decrease from $25,000.

“My concern over the years is why is the city of Crossville the sole sponsor that’s paying entry fees, prizes and so on and so fourth,” Mayberry said.

During contract discussions, Mayberry said the city learned that no other city fully sponsored a Tennessee Golf Association tournament. Mayberry said due to this, the city cut its amount and asked the organization to seek more corporate sponsors.

“Our final decision was that the marketing end of it is good for the community to have these tournaments here, but our funding is only to the tune of $10,000 each,” Mayberry said. “This is held at Fairfield Glade, which is a big Wyndham property and Wyndham sponsors some of the major PGA tournaments in the country. We had a hard time understanding why they relied solely on Crossville to be the sponsor.”

Mayberry said he still feels confident the tournament will return to Fairfield Glade. Mayberry said the city will no longer do a multi-year contract and consider it on a annual basis.

While some people may say the sponsorship is a waste of tax money, Mayberry said the events attracts tourism, which means more sales tax revenue.

“Our biggest funding source is sales tax, and we have been successful over the years,” Mayberry said. “A lot of the people are here for the weekend to spend their dollars and then go home, so we are not spending tax dollars on other things.”