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⛳️ Why TPC Sawgrass Was Originally Worth Just $1

⛳️ Why TPC Sawgrass Was Originally Worth Just $1

And how it became one of the most iconic courses in the world

Tyler Webb
March 14, 2025

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As promised, Uncle Charlie is hiring a summer intern! Full disclosure: this position is a grind (but let’s be honest, what entry-level job in sports isn’t).

If you’re into watching baseball and creating social media content, this might be the job for you—more specifics at the end.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: There’s a New Way Athletes Can Make $10K+ From March Madness

📉 Biggest Loser: The Truth Behind Cam Skattebo’s $300K Lawsuit

🏆 Winner’s Circle: Why TPC Sawgrass Was Originally Worth Just $1

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🗞 The Big Story

The NCAA just quietly signed a deal that’s going to help college athletes earn tens of thousands of dollars each during March Madness, but not in the way you might think.

NCAA’s Gold Mine: Since 2021, student-athletes have been allowed to profit off of their name, image, and likeness at their respective schools, but since the NCAA is the one that runs March Madness, they’ve decided to keep all the money generated from the tournament for themselves.

This means that even though the athletes are the ones playing in these games, they’ve never received a cut of any of the revenue the NCAA generates during March Madness, from the $8.8 billion TV deal to the estimated $200 million in merchandise sales.

However, this year, that’s all about to change.

Because for the first time ever, there’s a company that holds a licensing deal with:

The NCAA
Over 150 schools
More than 20,000 athletes

Athletes Cashing In: This new license allows for the creation of officially licensed apparel for every round of March Madness, from the opening weekend to the National Championship, that includes:

NCAA tournament logos (Sweet 16, Final Four, etc.)
University logos
Player likenesses

This deal finally allows student-athletes to get a cut of the hundreds of millions of dollars generated in merchandise sales every year, but the best part is that the further these teams advance, the more money these players can expect to make.

For example, through the NIL Store, athletes can earn anywhere from $12-$15 for every jersey sold.

For context, Fanatics typically pays athletes around 4% per sale, which means that for one $135 jersey, the athlete only sees $5.40, which is less than half of this new agreement between March Madness and the NIL Store.

And that difference is significant because if an athlete sells 1,000 jerseys, that’s the difference between getting paid $5,000 and over $12,000.

via the NIL Store

Not to mention, while Fanatics only pays athletes twice per year, the NIL Store pays athletes 2x per month, meaning they’re not only getting paid more but also as fast as possible.

Deals With Top Schools: Currently, the NIL Store has deals signed with some of the top men’s and women’s basketball teams in the nation, including Auburn, Duke, UConn, and LSU, and they expect to have deals in place with over 90 of the men’s and women’s team participating in March Madness this year.

📉 Biggest Loser

What the hell is going on with Cam Skattebo? Because even though it seems like he’s being extorted by a former teammate for over $300,000, there’s actually a lot more to this whole lawsuit than you might think.

Timeline:

July 31, 2023: Walk-on offensive lineman Mattheos Katergaris was riding in a golf cart with another player before an ASU practice when Skattebo hopped on the back and started jumping up and down.

The lawsuit claims that players had been informed that the carts could only carry two players at a time. The suit also alleges that Skattebo’s actions caused the back seat of the golf cart to break and Katergaris to fall to the ground.

Mattheos Katergaris

December 2023: According to his attorney, Katergaris suffered a laceration on his elbow down to his bone, resulting in a 90% rupture of his tricep tendon. This injury required surgery and months of physical therapy, resulting in thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills and effectively ending his football career.

May 2024: Katergaris files a lawsuit against the Arizona Board of Regents; however, they respond by saying that the university couldn’t be held liable and that Katergaris had incurred “unnecessary or unreasonable” expenses during his recovery.

January 27th, 2025: A few weeks after ASU’s Cinderella run into the College Football Playoff ended, Cam Skattebo is added to the lawsuit and required to pay over $300,000 in damages.

Bad Timing for Skattebo: I will admit that the timing of adding Skattebo to this lawsuit doesn’t look great. It seems like Katergaris is just trying to cash in because he knows Skattebo is about to get drafted.

However, it’s also possible that after getting nowhere with the university, Katergaris’ lawyers figured their next best option to pay outstanding medical bills was to sue Skattebo.

And they might actually have a decent chance of winning, especially if they can prove that Skattebo knew that only two players could be on a golf cart at a time and decided to jump on the back of it anyway.

But at the end of the day, my guess is that this thing goes away quietly after Skattebo gets drafted and can easily afford a small, 6-figure settlement.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

Hole No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

One of the most famous golf courses in the world was originally bought for just $1.

Hat tip to Jake Stoutland for his video inspiring this story.

Background: In 1979, PGA commissioner Deane Beman noticed that most of the Tour’s tournaments were being played at private golf courses that weren’t designed to host thousands of spectators.

So, he had an idea:

Why not open a public golf course designed specifically to host one of the PGA’s biggest and most lucrative events: The Player’s Championship?

The Plan: Originally, Beman’s plan was just to buy an existing course called Sawgrass Country Club outside of Jacksonville, Florida, and renovate it to fit his vision.

However, the owner didn’t want to sell. Then, after hearing Beman’s new idea, he even bet him $100 that he couldn’t pull it off.

See, after being turned down by Sawgrass Country Club, Beman went across the street and found 415 acres of untouched land.

Dean Beman and Pete Dye (right)

The only problem was it was 415 acres of Florida swamp… making it essentially worthless.

But Beman didn’t care, and he struck a deal with the land owner to buy it for $1 - a check that still hangs in the course’s clubhouse to this day.

Iconic Design: Beman then enlisted legendary course designer Pete Dye to design what would become TPC Sawgrass in his vision.

His goal was to create the first-ever “stadium course,” which would be explicitly designed for spectators. This means that almost all of the holes at TPC Sawgrass are set lower than the spectator areas to give fans the best view possible. Each hole is also intentionally designed to be closer together, allowing fans to get around more quickly than at most Tour courses.

And since this is technically a public course, it’s open to everyone for most of the year, although given its iconic design, TPC Sawgrass can charge the second highest prices of any course in the country at over $900 per round.

I guess that $25 million purse has to come from somewhere.

⏱️ In Other News

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

If you’re a long-time BOTN fan, you’ll know that every summer, my agency hires a live coverage intern for one of our clients (The American Association of Professional Baseball).