Working the Core

PAUL MILLSAP loves Denver—the city was integral to helping develop the NBA all- star’s game, to the point where, when he signed a $90 million free agent contract with the Nuggets in 2017, he didn’t hold his introductory news conference at the Pepsi Center, but rather, at the Montbello Rec Center in the northeast part of the city.

Millsap is also something of a golf fanatic, so the news that he was linking up with the PGA of America, becoming its first-ever PGA WORKS Ambassador—sponsoring a year-long paid fellowship that will provide an individual from a diverse background the chance to pursue a career within the golf industry—wasn’t especially surprising. However, the initiative, part of his charitable foundation (and formally called the Paul Millsap PGA WORKS Fellowship) will be run out of the Georgia PGA Section and Foundation.

The reason it’s there and not here? Call it Family First.

A product of the South (he attended Louisiana Tech University), Millsap played for four seasons with the Atlanta Hawks before joining the Nuggets; his wife and children are still in that city, even as the power forward pushes to take Denver to a Western Conference title. He also has a great deal of family in the region; in 2017, Millsap and his three brothers, John, Ben and Elijah, created CORE4, a facility with physical, mental, academic and work training protocols. CORE4 will work with the PGA in implementing the fellowship.

While Colorado may have missed out on this particular initiative, the hope is that there will be future opportunities to work with Millsap.

“We met Paul and his uncle (DeAngelo Simmons, who runs Millsap’s foundation) last year at the PGA Merchandise Show,” said Eddie Ainsworth, the CEO of the PGA’s Colorado section. “Hopefully Paul will be able to come out to, or play in, one of our events sometime in the near future and we’ll go from there.” pgareach.org

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This article was also featured in the Spring Issue of Colorado AvidGolfer.

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