Stephens Cup

The inaugural Jackson T. Stephens Cup was a resounding success, reflecting its namesake’s commitment to growing the game—and the elite college tournament is just getting started

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WHEN STEPHENS, INC. CEO Warren Stephens announced the creation of the Jackson T. Stephens Cup last year, he said, “Our goal is to create a distinctive and highly-competitive collegiate tournament that is comprised of tomorrow’s PGA TOUR and LPGA stars playing some of the country’s premier golf courses.” This October, that goal was met when top college players came to Stephens’ Alotian Club in Arkansas for three days of fantastic golf. More than “just” an elite college event, the tournament named for Stephens’ father, the late businessman and one-time Chairman of Augusta National, was a way to keep Jackson’s legacy alive via the game that he loved so much. In that respect and others, the tournament was a resounding success.

“In my view, the whole thing reflected him,” says Warren Stephens, taking stock of the inaugural event and thinking of his father. “Young people playing golf—young people from all over the world were on these teams.”

Competitors included top teams from NCAA Division I men’s and women’s programs, along with players from service academies and HBCUs. Jackson, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was also a huge supporter of growing the game, and believed that everyone should have access to golf.

“The players from the service academies, which were near and dear to his heart and which are near and dear to mine, these are not your typical college students or college athletes,” Stephens explains. “They’ve got a commitment to serve in the United States military, so they have a different outlook on it. And with the HBCUs, their individual players, to be able to provide them not only the experience of playing Alotian, but they’re going to experience great clubs going forward. That helps grow the game.”

Indeed: Following Alotian Club, the next Stephens Cup is set to be played at the exclusive Seminole Golf Club, and from there it’s on to Trinity Forest Golf Club—venues that many Stephens Cup competitors would not otherwise have a chance to play.

“To have that exposure widens their experience,” Stephens says, pointing out that his father, who grew up during the Great Depression, didn’t have the chance to play golf growing up, and only took up the game at the age of 36.

Warren Stephens presents the Jackson T. Stephens Cup to Notre Dame coach John Handrigan after beating Arkansas [above-left]; Arkansas’ Mateo Fernandez De Oliveira hits from the 18th fairway [left]; Arnold Palmer shares a joke with Jackson T. Stephens [above-right]

“He loved golf, and he was so involved in the early development of the FirstTee, he wanted to make golf as accessible to everyone as he possibly could. I think this makeup of the tournament, the players, and the teams, this is something that reflects everything he stood for.”

Played from October 9–12, the tournament featured 36 holes of stroke play on Monday, 18 holes of stroke play on Tuesday, and then a match play final round, by seed. In the end, Notre Dame’s men’s program and LSU’s women’s team emerged victorious, claiming team championships, but their victory was simply the icing on the cake to what was, comprehensively, a beautifully spirited event. That’s not to say there weren’t challenges, of course...

“Any time you stand something up that’s never been quite done before, it’s a challenge,” says Stephens, citing COVID as the first of many hurdles organizers had to overcome.

“You have to overlay COVID over the whole thing; for the first time—and hopefully for the last time—we had to really focus on that. And we were dealing with inviting players and teams that really didn’t know what we were about. I think some of them had a really good idea, they knew the format and what-not, but they didn’t know if it was going to really be a premiere event, and so some of them had to trust us on that. Also, some of the teams that we invited had other commitments. We’re the new kid on the block and so there was a lack of awareness of what this is.”

Along with the teams, Stephens says tournament partners, which included his own Stephens Inc., Workday, Dillard’s, Simmons Bank and others, also took a “leap of faith” to some degree.

“Lastly, the final thing—which we have zero control over—is the weather,” he adds. Even that cooperated, however, with the tournament playing out over wonderfully sunny days, all broadcast on Golf Channel.

Discussions have already started for the 2022 event at Seminole Golf Club, and while some challenges will always remain, Stephens says “awareness” is no longer one of them.

“It’s a really positive problem to have: everybody knows who we are now, and we have a lot of teams that want in,” he says. “There’s a chance we’ll expand the team event somewhat, but it’s not going to be by much. If you get too big, it becomes even more of a challenge, and we don’t want that.”

Stephens references the Arnold Palmer Cup, which he hosted at Alotian Club in 2019, as an example of a nicely sized event: “That was one of the things that was so appealing to us and to me about the Palmer Cup; this is not massive, it’s a big undertaking but this isn’t something we can’t easily handle.”

He also appreciates that the Palmer Cup is about more than just the competition, a sentiment that certainly is part of the Stephens Cup as well.

“[Jackson] was a huge champion of the amateur game,” Stephens says. “At the JTS Cup, to have Christyn Carr from North Carolina A&T shoot 69, shoot birdie on four of the last five holes and set a collegiate course record and a school record, and to see Fernandez De Olivera shoot three consecutive rounds of 70—a young African American woman from an HBCU and a young man playing at Arkansas who’s from Mexico—it makes you think, ‘Hey, this is pretty cool! This is what we’re trying to do! This is what golf is all about.”

Carr set a course record by becoming the first collegiate player to shoot a score below 70 at Alotian Club, and her 69 was a lowest-round-ever school record as well.

As Stephens summarized following the event: “I think we’re onto something.” We think so too.

Notre Dame's Taichi Kho with the Jackson T. Stephens Cup trophy after beating Arkansas [top]; LSU players celebrate after beating South Carolina [above]

Find out more about the tournament at stephenscup.com