Huntington will present the 19th Hole VIP Hospitality Experience
and support the Tour’s YouTube Player Profile Series
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Sapphire Golf Tour has announced Huntington National Bank as an Official Partner of the Tour and Presenting Partner of the 19th Hole VIP Hospitality Experience at the Windy City Women’s Open in Chicago and the Peach City Women’s Open in Atlanta. Huntington will also support the Sapphire Golf Tour’s YouTube Player Profile Series.
The partnership brings a leading regional bank to a developmental platform focused on expanding opportunity, visibility and career pathways for Black and other historically underrepresented women in professional golf. At both tournament stops, the 19th Hole VIP Hospitality Experience will convene players, business leaders, community partners and supporters around the conversations that help turn access into lasting infrastructure.
“This is not a logo on a banner,” said Tarek DeLavallade, Tour Commissioner of the Sapphire Golf Tour and Executive Director of the United Golfers Association. “It is capital deployed with conviction—an investment in the fastest-growing category in sports and in the players who have historically been locked out of it. Huntington Bank understood that the time to build is before it is obvious, and we are genuinely grateful they did.”
The Sapphire Golf Tour is an initiative of the United Golfers Association (UGA), an organization founded in 1925 to help create opportunity and advance the game within Black communities. Today, the Tour serves as a developmental circuit designed to bridge the gap between collegiate golf and elite professional competition. Beyond tournament purses, it connects rising players to coaching, player-development resources, strategic exemptions and visibility that can help open doors to higher-level competition.
Under DeLavallade’s leadership, Sapphire is building its player pipeline city by city—from junior programs and HBCU rosters to the professional ranks. The Tour’s work reflects a central reality of women’s golf: talent is abundant, while access to competitive opportunities, resources and professional networks has not always been equally available.
Huntington Bank’s involvement aligns with a longstanding commitment to community investment and inclusion. Founded in 1866, Huntington National Bank is part of Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bancshares Incorporated. The bank’s current five-year Community Plan committed $40 billion in loans and investments to historically resource-limited communities; Huntington reports it surpassed that target, reaching $45.6 billion in its first 55 months. Of the original commitment, $16 billion was dedicated to initiatives intended to expand equity in affordable housing, small-business financing and community services. The bank also supports inclusion internally through Business Resource Groups, Inclusion Councils and other colleague-engagement programs.
For the Sapphire Golf Tour, the partnership is an investment in both the present and the long view: competitive stages for today’s players, and visible proof for the young golfers watching that a place at the highest levels of the game is possible.
Chicago is next. Atlanta follows. Through Huntington’s partnership, the 19th Hole will offer a setting for the relationships and commitments that can help shape women’s golf’s next era.
Contact
Tarek DeLavallade
Tour Commissioner, Sapphire Golf Tour
Executive Director, United Golfers Association
Phone: 407-625-0300
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.SapphireGolfTour.com
c/o United Golfers Association
Memphis, TN 38103
