{"id":120895,"date":"2025-08-05T12:49:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T12:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/120895\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T12:49:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T12:49:16","slug":"brandon-graham-jameer-nelson-more-tee-it-up-at-jefferson-health-apga-pro-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/120895\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Graham, Jameer Nelson, more tee it up at Jefferson Health APGA Pro-Am"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Advocates Professional Golf Association countrywide tour is making a pit stop this week at the 1912 Club in Plymouth Meeting<\/a> for the second annual Jefferson Health<\/a> APGA Classic. <\/p>\n

The three-day event kicked off on Sunday with a pro-am featuring several Philadelphia notables from the sports and entertainment world before a youth clinic took over the links. Next, 56 tour players started competing across the span of 36 holes on Monday and Tuesday to determine who will claim shares of the $80,000 purse. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe APGA does a fantastic job of exposing some of these talented guys and giving them an opportunity,\u201d said Mike Quick, the former Eagles wide receiver and current broadcaster. \u201cThat partnership with Jefferson now and having an $80,000 purse, it\u2019s a big deal for these guys.\u201d <\/p>\n

The APGA provides amateur minority golfers with numerous opportunities in hopes that they will one day become professional golfers. <\/p>\n

\u201cStatistically, a lot of minorities come from inner cities and don\u2019t have prestigious golf courses like this to pursue the opportunity of being on the big tour,\u201d said Jameer Nelson, the former NBA All-Star from St. Joseph\u2019s who is now an assistant general manager of the 76ers. \u201cThis is a segue for these guys to be able to come out and work on their craft and hopefully progress, and we see them on CBS on Saturdays and Sundays now and then.\u201d <\/p>\n

They\u2019ve already seen one golfer go pro: Chase Johnson, the champion of last year\u2019s inaugural Jefferson Health APGA Classic. Johnson was the only APGA tour member to play in the 2025 U.S. Open, beating out PGA Tour stars Rickie Fowler and Max Homa in a qualifying playoff to earn his spot. <\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: The \u2018Tiger Effect\u2019 was supposed to transform golf, but there are few pro Black golfers. The APGA wants to change that.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s pro-am not only served as a practice round for these tour players, but also gave them a chance to talk to some famous local figures. Quick, Nelson, Brandon Graham<\/a>, Ike Reese, Kamal Gray, Hollis Thomas, and Chill Moody highlighted the star-studded lineup at the pro-am. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love supporting great causes,\u201d Graham said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s all about the community of people that you have. And for me, I feel like I have a duty to be on this platform to spread the love. Jameer [Nelson] called me and said, \u2018Hey, man. You want to do this?\u2019 And it was a no-brainer.\u201d <\/p>\n

But before heading to the first tee, Graham made sure to spend some time practicing on the range.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to get better and better so I can talk my stuff out here like I do on the field,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While most of the participants in Sunday\u2019s pro-am have retired from playing, Nelson, Quick, and Reese are all still closely involved in their respective sports. For Quick, it\u2019s just a month out until he rejoins Merrill Reese in the broadcast booth for the Eagles\u2019 Sept. 4 opener against the Dallas Cowboys. <\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: Jalen Carter gets \u2018a little thud\u2019 on Saquon Barkley in a friendly battle at Eagles training camp<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been with Merrill longer than I\u2019ve been with my wife,\u201d Quick said with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s a great relationship and, you know, we get on each other from time to time but it\u2019s all love, and I\u2019m very fortunate that I get to sit next to him every time the Eagles tee it up and talk football.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Week 1 is rapidly approaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be a big game,\u201d Quick added. \u201cYou drop the [championship] banner that night, and it\u2019s the Dallas Cowboys. It\u2019s already special as soon as you say Cowboys, but then when you throw in all the other stuff, it just makes it very special.\u201d <\/p>\n

In any of the previous 15 Eagles seasons, Graham would be in full pads getting ready to face off against the Cowboys. But not this year. Instead, the Eagles legend traded in his helmet and shoulder pads for a driver and putter. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Retirement\u2019s] been up and down. Sometimes you get the itch to want to go back because you\u2019re so used to doing this for over 15 years, but I\u2019m just dealing with it one day at a time,\u201d Graham said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to watch the Birds, though. I really do feel like they got an opportunity of a lifetime again this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see [Saquon Barkley<\/a>] break the [rushing] record if he can. But I want to see people get better that I know [were] like right in the middle and then they take off to stardom. I feel like the offensive line is going to be really good this year. Jihaad Campbell<\/a> is going to fall right in place, and the defensive line \u2014 I can\u2019t wait to watch Moro Ojomo. He\u2019s a guy that is going to make a big name for himself. Jalyx [Hunt], too.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Eagles aren\u2019t the only team nearing a return.<\/p>\n

While the 76ers\u2019 season didn\u2019t end nearly the same way that the Eagles\u2019 did, they just added a new piece with the No. 3 pick in the NBA draft, VJ Edgecombe<\/a>, who they hope can develop into a star. Development was a big part of the Sixers season, as Justin Edwards started the year in the G League with the Delaware Blue Coats and ended it as a key young piece in the Sixers rotation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe drafted [Edgecombe] to help develop him into what we think he can be, and that\u2019s a star at some point,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cWe have a good core of older guys and younger guys at this point, so the main thing is to just continue to grow. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure how old these guys and girls are here, but they\u2019re aspiring to be on a tour at some point, so it\u2019s just making it about the work and development, and it goes for basketball, football, golf, anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00bb READ MORE: What motivates Tyrese Maxey for this season? The Sixers\u2019 dismal 2024-25 campaign.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Advocates Professional Golf Association countrywide tour is making a pit stop this week at the 1912 Club…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":120896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[75123,1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-120895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-apga-jefferson-health-brandon-graham-jameer-nelson-sixers-eagles","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114976244817737862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}