WhyNotGolf is the brainchild of founder, Brent Haworth. Like most young boys, Brent dreamed of playing professional sports when he grew up. Brent played a number of different sports, including golf, baseball, soccer, football and basketball, but for many years he focused on his first love, baseball. His childhood dream came true when he was drafted to play professional baseball for the Anaheim Angels. Brent traveled up and down the West Coast playing for several years, but after an injury ended his baseball career, Brent wondered if his dream of a career in sports was over for good.
Next came the tough part. What do you do with your life when you are 24 years old and your dream has already come and gone? Brent finally settled into a career in the investment industry working for an investment advisor in Winter Park, Florida. Brent rose through the ranks to become co-manager of a mutual fund, while earning his Series 65 investment adviser's license. Though his job was intellectually challenging and allowed Brent to meet interesting people, Brent had a strong desire to start his own business. He knew that he wanted to combine his love of sports with something that would help people.
Brent grew up in a family that made it a practice to help others. His family hosted exchange students, mentored young people, and even invited a homeless family to live in their house until they got back on their feet. His dad, Bob Haworth, was involved with several charities, including a charity that helps people who are recovering from various types of addiction. As a result of his family's influence, while playing baseball Brent got involved with a charity that used sports to reach out to the underprivileged. He took a trip with the charity to Nicaragua, where he played baseball with local teams and spoke with many young people about following their dreams.
After his baseball career ended, Brent wanted to stay involved in sports and began playing in charity golf tournaments. He enjoyed playing golf with his friends, while supporting a good cause. One day, Brent decided to check online for a charity tournament to play in. He wasn't able to find a website featuring a list of local charity tournaments. He realized that it could take someone hours to go to multiple charities' websites to find out the dates of their golf tournaments. Also, as a result of playing in so many tournaments, he realized that there were many inefficiencies in the way that charities find players, receive payments (individual checks in the mail), and manage the people playing in their tournaments. Brent started to think there had to be an easier way for charities to run their tournaments and for golfers to find tournaments to play in. For a number of years, Brent worked his day job, while dreaming of a way to make his golf tournament booking website a reality. He had a feeling that this website would revolutionize the charity golf tournament business. He just needed the impetus to leave his good job and pursue this new dream. Sadly, it took a tragedy to push Brent to take the next step.
On August 17, 2016, Brent invited his father over to celebrate his 75th birthday. Brent and his father spent the whole day together and Brent cooked a great meal for him and friends that night. Brent did not know that would be the last night he'd see his father alive. Just a few hours after leaving Brent's house, his father suffered a massive stroke and passed away. His father had no risk factors for a stroke and, in fact, rode his bicycle up to 30 miles a day.
Brent was devastated to lose his father so suddenly and it made him want to do something to honor his father. When thinking about his father's legacy, it was clear to Brent that his father had dedicated his life to helping those in need. He also knew that the charities his father volunteered with always needed funding to be able to help more people. So Brent started thinking of what his website could do to help further his father's legacy. Brent believed that he could use his website to help charities make more money each time they ran a golf tournament. Brent decided that he wanted to help as many charities make as much money as they could by running their golf tournaments through his website. In short, that's why he developed WhyNotGolf.
With the goal of creating a high quality website that could reach and help as many charities as possible, Brent partnered with his long time friend Donovan Wells, who operates one of the highest rated web development companies in Central Florida and who has created many top notch websites. With Donovan's tech expertise and Brent's passion and knowledge, WhyNotGolf is committed to providing a great product for both charities and golfers alike.
WhyNotGolf is dedicated to helping charities save time, make more money and attract more golfers for their tournaments. WhyNotGolf will never stop innovating and thinking of ways to help charity golf tournaments be more successful. WhyNotGolf doesn't just provide a great service for charities, we also give back. Because WhyNotGolf believes in charities and their missions, we pledge to give back 10% of our net revenue every year to selected charities who use our website. WhyNotGolf believes that when charities succeed, we all succeed.
