Disney Golf Tournament License Plates

Notes

Very little information is known about the Disney Golf Tournament License Plates. Most of what is known has come from collectors and the volunteers who had plates in their possession.

When I started cataloging Disney License plates, only a few of the golf tournament plates had been seen in the public hands. These plates were exclusive issues to volunteers, participants and Disney Classic Club members involved in the tournaments. They were limited in production and not intended for public distribution.

The golf tournaments started in 1971, but the early license plates were rarely seen and still today some of the plates have yet to be seen.

First I started listing those plates that were known and then added new discoveries to the end of the golf plate catalog section. This was done to prevent from changing catalog numbers every time a "new" plate was added to the catalog. Hence, the plates do not appear in year sequence or any logical order. That makes it difficult to know what plates are missing from the catalog.

This special page was created to display the golf plates in order by year. As it is a single complete list, it may take some additional time to fully download the entire page. The data format used for each plate is: Year of Issue, Catalog Number, Plate ID Number (if any), UPC Code (if known) and Comments (if any).

It is quite possible that you may find additional plates for specific years that are not listed in the catalog. It is also possible that there were three distinct plates issued for any given year. The 1977 golf plates are examples of the three types that may be found. One color was issued to the volunteers, another color was issued to the participants and a unique plate was issued for Classic Club Members who played in the tournament. Due to the lack of information, it is not clear if all the years had three plates issued or in what years only one plate was issued.

The Classic Club is a private golf club that requires a substantial membership fee to join. Classic Club Members have special privileges that allow them to play in the tournaments along side the pros. See Pro-AM informational sheet (PDF Format).

The Walt Disney World Golf Classic ended in 2012. The final golf tournament sponsor was the Children's Miracle Network (2007-2012). The tournament was removed from the PGA Tour schedule for 2013 after Children's Miracle Network declined to renew their sponsorship and no others were found. Past tournaments were known as: Funai Classic (2003-2006), Disney Golf Classic (2002), National Car Rental Golf Classic (1998-2001), Walt Disney World/Oldsmobile Classic (1985-97), Walt Disney World Golf Classic (1982-84), Walt Disney World National Team Championship (1974-81), and the Walt Disney World Open Invitational (1971-73).

The 2004 Classic Club golf plate was the last license plate to be issued. The plates have been replaced with window decals/stickers or paper placards to identify the volunteers and participants.

The image below is of one of the paper placards issued to volunteers for the 2003 Funai Classic at Walt Disney World. The actual size of the placard is 5½" by 8½". The placard was courtesy of Paul Leonard of Orlando, Florida.