November 2013
| Business World Magazine | 191
from its charitable foundation, yet it also
helps everyone in Georgia, whether they
play golf or not. To explain that requires
understanding the economic impact real-
ized from golf in Georgia, which accord-
ing to a 2010 study, annually amounts to
more than $2.4 billion.
As GSGA President Chuck Palmer
says, “Golf in Georgia has a huge eco-
nomic impact, perhaps more so than any
other state. I think everyone here appre-
ciates golf’s importance, not only to our
economy, but in terms of positioning our
state on an international stage. After all,
we’re home to both The Masters and the
TOUR Championship. We have the pre-
mier bookends of the PGA season played
here in Georgia.”
Palmer says it is almost unbelievable
to consider all that has taken place since
the staging of that first amateur champion-
ship in 1916. “For the founders, it would
be hard for them to envision what’s hap-
pened over the last 100 years from the in-
corporation of technology to the handicap
system and the range of opportunities that
