Posted on: June 25, 2024, 09:15h.
Last updated on: June 25, 2024, 09:24h.
Las Vegas Sands on Monday announced six-time PGA Tour winner and two-time major champion Collin Morikawa as its newest brand ambassador.
Sands says the partnership is a multiyear engagement that will see the Los Angeles native help promote the company’s integrated resort casinos in Singapore and China’s Macau. Morikawa and Sands will work together to “advance the mutual goal of building strong and resilient communities with priorities on youth development and community revitalization in areas of need.”
To celebrate the alignment of the world’s richest casino brand by market capitalization and one of golf’s most popular players, Sands is donating $100K to the Maggie Hathaway Golf Course restoration project in Morikawa’s hometown of Los Angeles.
Morikawa has been working with FORE Youth: The 2022 US Open Community Legacy Campaign, a $15 million undertaking, to restore the nine-hole, par-3 golf course to provide youth development options in the area east of Los Angeles International Airport.
Morikawa and Sands’ Relationship
This isn’t the first time Morikawa and Sands have teamed up.
The 2020 PGA Championship and 2021 Open Championship winner previously attended Sands-sponsored youth golf clinics in Macau and on New York’s Long Island where the company hopes to build a casino resort. Morikawa will continue to support those golf-focused community engagements.
Morikawa also aided in the response to the deadly wildfires in Hawaii last year through a relief effort sponsored by Sands. Sands has long supported the needs of the Hawaiian people, as the state is crucial to the Las Vegas economy, though Sands sold its Venetian and Palazzo properties on the Strip in 2022.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with Sands in New York and Macau, and we are very much aligned in our commitment to leverage the sport of golf to advance youth development and build leadership skills,” Morikawa said. “But I’m just as excited that we share a vision for creating strong communities by addressing areas that need the infusion of resources we can bring to the table.”
“Collin is an outstanding partner for us on many fronts, first and foremost because of his leadership both on and off the course,” added Sands Chairman and CEO Robert Goldstein. “Between our mutual home of Las Vegas and shared Asia roots, we intend to create a host of opportunities to advance the priorities and causes that are equally important to us.”
Casino Golf Sponsorships
Sands didn’t respond to comment as to whether Morikawa will don an LVS logo on his golf apparel. If he does, he’ll join a laundry list of other PGA, LIV, and LPGA touring pros with casino logos on their shirts, hats, and/or bags.
MGM Resorts International, which also operates in Macau, is a major sponsor of touring golf pros. Its roster features several Las Vegas residents, including Danielle Kang, Natalie Gulbis, Ryan Moore, and LIV Golf’s Kevin Na.
MGM and Sands are both sponsors of women’s golf. MGM sponsors and hosts the LPGA Tour’s April match-play tournament at its Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas. Sands is a sponsor of the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore, which Korean Jin Young Ko won back-to-back in 2022 and 2023.
Ko, the world’s third-ranked female golfer, is sponsored by Solaire Resort Casino in the Philippines.
Patrick Cantlay, eighth in the men’s rankings, regularly wears an Apollo hat promoting the private equity giant that has considerable holdings in the North American gaming industry.
