In the stratosphere rich people inhabit, having your name on the Wachovia Championship Pro Am roster means something.
It reads like a who’s who of rich and influential people: local business titans like Johnny Harris and Howard Bissell and national sports figures like Peyton Manning.
In the Monday and Wednesday Pro Am, local rich people are paired with individual PGA golfers from the championship and play against each other. There are only two ways to get your hands on one of about 100 guest slots on Pro Am: You can either spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on a business sponsorship, or you can be invited by someone who has a business sponsorship.
So how did Mayor Pat McCrory, who holds a middle-management level job at Duke Energy, manage to score tickets to play in the event?
Wachovia invited the mayor to play, bank spokesperson Carrie Ruddy says. Because the bank puts on the tournament, it gets a certain number of tickets to give out to clients and community leaders.
But why did the bank choose McCrory?
“We don’t really provide any further detail on our process for that other than that we invite key clients and community leaders,” said Ruddy.
McCrory says he played in the Pro Am because he believes it helps the city to promote the event. “I did it for the community,” he explained.
McCrory’s relationship with Wachovia is fairly cozy. In 2005, he received a $2,000 donation from Wachovia CEO Ken Thompson, who cohosted a fund-raiser for McCrory last April. In the interim, the mayor presided over city business matters important to the bank, including the new $150 million arts package.
Adam Sotak, director of organizing for Democracy North Carolina, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works for greater disclosure of the flow of money in politics, says the Pro Am tickets are exactly the kind of high-value political “favor” that erodes the public’s trust in its elected officials.
“This is one of those situations that brings to light some of the coziness between elected officials and corporate donors,” said Sotak. “It is easy to see where the public might feel like, hey, what are these corporate sponsors getting that we aren’t getting through the local process?”
This article appears in May 17-23, 2006.
