The FedEx St. Jude Classic was a professional golf tournament held in Memphis, Tennessee, as a regular event on the PGA Tour. The tournament was held annually from 1958 through 2018, and was played in June at TPC Southwind (since 1989).
In 2019, FedEx took over sponsorship of the WGC Invitational and relocated the tournament to Memphis in late July. The relocated WGC event continues the charitable relationship with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The new name for the relocated event is the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational For the 2021–22 season, the WGC Invitational was discontinued, and the first FedEx Cup playoff event was relocated to TPC Southwind with FedEx as the new title sponsor; the event will be named the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
History
The tournament debuted in May 1958 as the Memphis Open and was played annually at Colonial Country Club in Memphis through 1971, then at the club's new home in Cordova through 1988. The late Vernon Bell, a Memphis restaurateur, co-founded the tournament and served as the tournament's general chairman for 22 years. He is also the father of the late Chris Bell.
St. Jude
In 1969, entertainer Danny Thomas (1912–1991) agreed to lend his name to the tournament in exchange for his St. Jude Children's Research Hospital becoming the tournament's charity. Accordingly, the tournament changed its name the next year to the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic.
In 1977, President Gerald Ford, who had left office in January, made a hole-in-one during the tournament's celebrity pro-am while playing with Thomas and Ben Crenshaw. Two days later, Al Geiberger shot a PGA Tour record 59 (−13) in the second round with eleven birdies and an eagle. He needed a rally on Sunday to win by three strokes at 273 (–15).
Federal Express
In 1986, Memphis-based courier Federal Express became the title sponsor. For the first three years of their sponsorship, FedEx increased the purse one dollar for each package they shipped on the Friday of the tournament. The purses went from $500,000 to $605,912 in 1986, from $600,000 to $724,043 in 1987, and from $750,000 to $953,842 in 1988.
The Stanford Financial Group took over as the tournament's title sponsor in 2007, and it was renamed Stanford St. Jude Championship. In 2009, the tournament changed its name to St. Jude Classic, following accusations that the Stanford Financial Group was a Ponzi scheme. FedEx returned as title sponsor in 2011.
TPC Southwind
The event's final edition at Colonial Country Club in Cordova was in 1988. It moved to its present location at TPC Southwind in Memphis in 1989.
The purse in 2018 was $6.6 million, with a winner's share of $1.188 million.