Players Championship hires Lee Smith as executive director

Lee Smith was born and raised in Illinois, went to college in Missouri and worked as a PGA professional and golf course general manager in his native state, as well as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Jersey.

But accepting the challenge of becoming the next executive director of the Players Championship brings Smith full circle in a sense: in his first job as an assistant professional at the Urbana Country Club, about 10 minutes south on I-57 from his hometown in Rantoul, Illinois, one of the club’s members was Jaguars owner Shad Khan and Smith gave lessons to Khan’s son, Tony.

“A really cool connection,” the 47-year-old Smith said Monday on the back porch of the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse, watching the sun set over the Players Stadium course. “I’m really happy for the success the Jaguars are having.”

When told the Jags have a corporate chalet overlooking the 17th hole Island Green, Smith was enthusiastic about the prospect of a reunion with the Khans.

“I’m looking forward to that,” he said.

That was around 25 years ago and much has changed.

For one thing, Khan now owns the Urbana Country Club.

For another, Smith takes over for Jared Rice in running the PGA Tour’s marquee tournament after a career of more than two decades as a club pro, course general manager and helping the Tour run FedEx Cup playoff events at Liberty National in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Rice, who has had a dual role as the Tour’s senior vice-president for Championship Management tournament revenue, will be the senior vice-president for sale and marketing for Championship Management, with a focus on the Players, the Sentry Tournament of Champions, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the Tour Championship and the Presidents Cup.

Rice had been the Players executive director since November 2017, following Matthew Rapp (now senior vice-president of Championship Management) and Jay Monahan (now the PGA Tour commissioner).

Smith has been the general manager at Liberty National for five years and assisted the Tour in the running of the Northern Trust in 2019 and 2021 and brought the LPGA to Liberty National for June’s Mizuno Americas Open.

He oversaw a staff of nearly 150 employees at Liberty National and now will take the PGA Tour’s “Gold Standard” into its sixth decade.

“We will continue to have the strongest field in golf, at an iconic venue in the TPC Sawgrass,” Smith said. “And we want to continue to provide the ultimate experience for the…