The American Express Golf tournament doles out $1M to local charities for 64th year in a row

It’s another year of giving back to the community.

The American Express Golf Tournament held its annual ‘Helping Hands’ breakfast, donating to several local organizations across the Coachella Valley. This longtime tradition continues for its 64th year in a row. On Thursday, 37 local charities taking received $1 million in proceeds from last year’s tournament.

"We’re honored to do so. And we’re honored to have American Express as our title sponsor, you know, we wouldn’t be here without them," said the Executive Director of the tournament, Pat McCabe. He went on to tout their recent extended commitment through 2028. McCabe also says, the sky is the limit when planning each year, "We’re always looking to change things and tweak things make it for the better, whether that’s the fan experience, when they get on the bus in the parking lot or when they’re out at PGA west or here at looking at the country club and join the golf so kind of little things little local food offerings out there that you’ll see this year."

And locals are grateful for contribution, especially organizations whose roots began right here in the valley, including the Lee Espinoza Coachella Valley Boxing Club. The legendary boxing coach says this goes a long way. He says, "It’s a big day for us because what we do is, you know, our program is free to free facility to everybody. And we provide all the gloves. Before the pandemic we used to pay for the guys to go to the nationals and things like that. Really tough." Espinoza added this donation will change that, "So we took a big hit, this will help us to start coming back to for that."

This tournament returns January 19th through the 23rd!