MEMPHIS, Tenn. — James Dukes – perhaps better known by his professional moniker, IMAKEMADBEATS – has never been to the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
“The realest answer, I didn’t even know it existed,” said Dukes, a record producer and founder of Unapologetic, an artist collective in Memphis.
He does now, and he will be there when 70 of the world’s best golfers will converge on the Bluff City. That’s because tournament officials have spent the better part of the past year making concerted efforts to broaden its appeal. To attract a more diverse audience. To show, while it is a golf tournament, it’s not necessarily just for golf fans. And to become more inclusive, more reflective of the city that has hosted the PGA Tour stop every year since 1958.
Joe Tomek, who was named the event’s executive director in September 2021, spearheaded the outreach. He partnered with DCA, a downtown Memphis-based communications consulting firm, and got in front of elected officials, community leaders and prominent voices – like Dukes.
A “listening tour,” he called it, and the feedback he got came through loud and clear.
“We live in the largest majority minority city in America,” Tomek said, referencing 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data that indicated 63 percent of Memphis’ population is Black. “The game of golf has not always been the most inclusive place. If you don’t acknowledge that head-on, then you’ll never find a solution.
“(Memphis mayor Paul Young) says it all the time: Diversity is our super-power. Why shouldn’t our PGA Tour stop and Memphis as a city be the place that’s a prime example of golf being for everyone?”
A ‘full-throated’ approach to change
What was once simply a regular-season tournament, in the past five years it was first elevated to World Golf Championship status, then to what it is now, the first leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. In that time, the four-day tournament has routinely attracted tens of thousands of spectators.
But that is not what resonates with Dukes. It isn’t that he’s not a golf fan. The White Station graduate simply gravitated toward basketball and football, because they were more easily accessible than golf.
Then, there were the optics. Historically, Black representation on the PGA Tour has been few and far between. There is Tiger Woods, of course. There was Charlie Sifford, Lee Elder and Calvin Peete before him. But, today, Harold Varner III, who competes in LIV Golf, is perhaps the…
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