{"id":808207,"date":"2026-08-09T19:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T19:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/808207\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T19:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T19:22:22","slug":"generosity-is-contagious-eagle-county-golf-tournament-exceeds-goal-while-raising-money-for-9-local-charities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/808207\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Generosity is contagious\u2019: Eagle County golf tournament exceeds goal while raising money for 9 local charities"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little friendly competition on the golf course has raised $285,000 dollars for nine local charities during one tournament. The Generosity Cup provided a fun day on the links in July at Red Sky Golf Club and encouraged people to be generous.<\/p>\n

The Generosity Cup was started by Trey Little and Kyle Van. Little is the president of National Christian Foundation in Houston, which is a faith-based organization that helps people give to charities, ministries and churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe National Christian Foundation<\/a> has what they call \u201cGenerous July\u201d but it\u2019s quite hot in Houston this time of year, so I had this idea to take Generous July on the road. Why don\u2019t we go to Colorado, let\u2019s go to where our people are?\u201d Little said. \u201cAnd then I said, \u2018Why don\u2019t we have a golf tournament?\u2019 and that\u2019s when Kyle stepped in with the idea to host it at Red Sky Ranch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I thought, \u2018That\u2019s all we need is another golf tournament,\u2019 but why don\u2019t we do something that would get the local charities involved where they would compete against each other and we could raise money for them. So, I texted eight people from different local charities that I knew that night. Within 24 hours everybody said, \u2018Great idea\u2019 and we started with those eight charities,\u201d Van said.<\/p>\n

Van initially thought they could raise $20,000 or $30,000.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut then a friend of ours, Barry Davis, who is involved with the BetterMan, a charity based out of Dallas but they have an organization here, too, said, \u2018why don\u2019t you go for $75,000 or $100,000?\u2019 So we had eight foursomes for each charity, and some independent teams, so 12 teams total, and we played Red Sky Golf Club,\u201d Van said. \u201cWe ended up with $137,000 bucks and I thought, \u2018Well, I guess this thing\u2019s going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Golf legend Tom Watson, center, took time to pose with every team in the Generosity Cup Tournament before play began. Generosity Cup\/Courtesy photo<\/p>\n

This summer, the charities expanded to nine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our friends, Eric Reinhardt, asked if we could add one more charity and he is involved with Junior Achievement and that fit our model so then we had two teams per charity for 18 teams and four independent teams for 22 teams total and Red Sky Golf Club worked with us to take over the Tom Fazio course for the afternoon,\u201d Van said.<\/p>\n

The nine charities are:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage people to get involved in their community, whether it\u2019s their second home or primary, you still give back. You still have some skin in the game,\u201d Little said. \u201cI think that is really important and it endears them more to this area and they care about this community and these organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted people who live out here three to five months a year to treat it like home for three to five months a year. This is not vacation. This is home,\u201d Van said. \u201cWhat I\u2019m sensing is a lot of our locals whether they\u2019re from Florida or Arizona or Atlanta or whatever, are starting to say, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s get behind this because this is really helping support the Vail Valley. We\u2019re helping support the people that support us here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Trey Little, left and Kyle Van are already planning next year\u2019s Generosity Cup tournament at Red Sky Golf Club. Generosity Cup\/Courtesy photo<\/p>\n

The golf tournament started out with burgers and hot dogs and all the fixings at Red Sky Golf Club and the teams gathered on July 21. Little and Van explained the rules and introduced the nine charities and explained where the money raised was going. And then the crowd was treated to some insight and inspiration from six-time PGA Player of the Year Tom Watson.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the teams was trying to recruit Tom to play with them, but Tom said, \u2018Well, I just got back from the British Open so I don\u2019t want to play but I\u2019ll be glad to help anyway I can,\u2019 so we were so thrilled to have him speak to the group and answer a few questions for about 30 minutes before the tournament started,\u201d Van said.<\/p>\n

Watson spoke about how he got into the sport and playing with his dad, who was a historian of the game. He also joked about how his mom would get telephone calls on the house phone from people like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus calling to play with him when he was a young rising star on the golf circuit. At the end of his talk, Watson stressed that it\u2019s about having fun out there during the tournament that day. The PGA champion who won eight majors also took time to take a photo with each team before the tournament began. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Fresh off of a trip to the British Open, American golf legend Tom Watson opted not to play in the Generosity Cup, but instead gave a talk before the tournament started at Red Sky Golf Club. Generosity Cup\/Courtesy photo<\/p>\n

Last year the event raised $137,000 and this year, the amount doubled.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur \u201cstretch\u201d goal this year was $250,000 and wow, the generosity was contagious and the support from our out of state summer residents who also call the Vail Valley home was spectacular,\u201d Van said.<\/p>\n

Evans Scholars won first place in a scorecard playoff with Young Life coming in second and the Eagle Valley Community Foundation finished in third place. Each charity was given at least $25,000 with the top finishers earning more.<\/p>\n

\u201cA huge thank you goes out to Trey Little and Kyle Van. It\u2019s such a gift to the middle school and high school kids in this valley that will benefit from their generous hearts and the generosity of the donors.\u201d said Ben Dodds, area director for Vail Valley Young Life. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of nonprofits in this valley and to see those nine charities be recognized at that course, on that stage, and to see the men and women in the room that just believe in the different nonprofits, whether it\u2019s kids or helping veterans and all of the other organizations represented is a tremendous gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super special as a nonprofit to be invited to participate in this,\u201d said John Welaj, executive director at Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley. \u201cWe already collaborate with all these charities, so it\u2019s nice to be here together, meeting new people that we have commonalities with and that has a ripple effect through our community, it doesn\u2019t just end necessarily in one day. There are a lot of opportunities to help each other out because we\u2019re doing a lot of the same work. And it\u2019s kind of cool to see it all kind of come together in this manner thanks to the Generosity Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little and Van are already planning for next year with the Generosity Cup scheduled for July 20, 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019re all very blessed to be a part of this and we\u2019re excited for what\u2019s to come. A big thanks to Red Sky Golf Club, they have been wonderful to work with, and we love our 88 players and the charities. The heart behind this is to have one event that can do so much for all these charities,\u201d Little said. \u201cThat would not have happened if the 88 people that played did not say, \u2018I\u2019m in.\u2019 We are better together, and it\u2019s the 88 people who came together and said, \u2018I want to be a part of something bigger than myself, and I want to be a blessing to nine charities in the Vail Valley.’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A little friendly competition on the golf course has raised $285,000 dollars for nine local charities during one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-808207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}