Valero Energy Corporation gearing up for Valero Texas Open kick-off

Valero logoValero Energy Corporation and the Valero Texas Open staff are already working hard toward this year’s Valero Texas Open PGA Tour tournament, which takes place from March 27-30 at the AT&T Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio. The tournament, which is one of the largest professional sporting events to take place annually in San Antonio, is followed up on March 31 by the Benefit for Children – a unique golf event for more than 2,000 players with morning and afternoon golf outings on 11 of San Antonio’s top courses as well as a sporting clays shooting tournament at a first-class course.

It takes a tremendous amount of work to put on the event each year – including the efforts of more than 1,300 volunteers – but it’s worth it. Together, the Valero Texas Open and Benefit for Children events raised $10 million for children’s charities in 2013 to bring the total raised beyond $81.5 million since the tournament was started.

Valero_photoThe funds for charity are raised through sponsorships, and they are distributed to children’s charities in all of the areas where Valero has major operations in the proportions that those areas raised funds. Valero employees in those areas form committees to choose worthy charities to receive the funds. Last year in San Antonio, nearly 100 children’s charities received a share of the $2.7 million allocated to this year as a result of the tournament.

This year the Valero Texas Open and the Benefit for Children will emphasize the “Drive to $100 million” as the 2014 events help the tournament toward its goal of surpassing $100 million raised for charities. The Valero Texas Open has been the top fundraising event on the PGA Tour for the past several years.

PGA Tour players completing this year promise to feature the same kind of big names that vied for last year’s trophy, including Rory McIlroy, Jim Furyk, Charley Hoffman, K.J. Choi, Padraig Harrington, and 2013 champion Martin Laird.

In winning the 2013 tournament, Laird not only got to take home the top purse of more than $1.1 million, but he also was presented with a custom-made pair of cowboy boots to remind him of his success in Texas.

Ticket packages for the upcoming 2014 Valero Texas Open are already on sale at http://www.valerotexasopen.com