Eric Sedransk
Golf as a source for good
Golf as a vessel for philanthropy seems as old as time immemorial. It speaks to the game’s unique ability to bind so many disparate demographics together, rallying them in support of a common cause.
In this culture of giving back, there are few better charitable examples than Eric Sedransk.
His platform Member for a Day has made perhaps the largest philanthropic splash in golf’s recent memory. Via an innovative auction-focused blueprint, Sedransk has transformed the world of American private golf into a lightning rod for nonprofit donations. From COVID relief to cancer research, Sedransk’s efforts have proved that golf can be more than just a game — it can be a veritable force for good.
Despite his current occupation, the New York native didn’t touch a club until he was well into his teens. He picked up the sport in tandem with his father, who was looking for a suitable post-retirement commitment. When Sedransk enrolled at Tulane University, he turned his attention to amateur golf in order to scratch his latent competitive itch.
This love affair was still burning into the start of 2020 as Sedransk found himself in Jersey City, working as a member of the ever-growing tech sector. However, as with many urban residents at the time, he could sense something ominous approaching in the first few months of that fateful year.
“You could sort of feel what was coming,” Sedransk remembered. “People were just starting to freak out a little bit.”
“Member for a Day’s legacy will forever be for my father. I just want to make my dad proud.”
With the pandemic just beginning to roar to life and not wanting to be trapped in a dense metropolitan environment, Sedransk hightailed it down to his mother’s house on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where he was able to live comfortably and even got to play a little golf in the Carolina lowcountry.
However, he never stopped paying attention to the New York area he had abruptly departed. Through social media, Sedransk watched as friends became stuck in apartments for weeks on end, parks were transformed into field hospitals, and local businesses closed their doors for good. Most alarmingly, he saw New York’s frontline workers buckling under the strain of all-day shifts and nearly zero avenues of assistance. Comparing this nightmare to his relative safety in the South, a feeling akin to survivor's guilt became too strong to ignore.
“It was just sort of this surreal dichotomy,” Sedransk reflected on his living situation at the time. “It led to this immense amount of guilt that I left, and I ultimately wanted to do something to alleviate that.”
This simple desire to help became the impetus behind Member for a Day.
With his options to support from a distance relatively limited, Sedransk turned to the game that had become an integral part of his life for an answer. He decided to try his hand at organizing a charity auction open to the public, where anyone could bid on exclusive rounds of golf. All proceeds raised would go towards buying meals for the doctors and nurses dealing firsthand with the COVID-19 crisis.
Sedransk put out a rallying cry on social media, searching for clubs, individuals, and organizations willing to donate high-profile rounds and experiences for bidding. Almost immediately, elite facilities such as Shinnecock Hills, Friar’s Head, and the Ocean Club jumped at the chance to contribute.
With a worthy cause and a cornucopia of bucket-list items available, the first Member for a Day auction was a smash success. More than 50 rounds of exceptional private golf were sold to charitable bidders in a single week, raising more than $100,000 for frontline relief in New York City. Sedransk spent the summer months of 2020 personally handing out 12,000 meals to those fighting the ground war against the pandemic.
While originally envisioned as a one-and-done effort to support a specific cause, it quickly became apparent that Member for a Day had the potential to reach far beyond COVID assistance. “After that initial auction, I started getting messages from nonprofits,” Sedransk stated. “In that moment, I realized we had something if I could just figure out how to make it scale.”
And scale he did. Member for a Day has evolved into one of the golf world’s most prolific benefactors. Sedransk and his team have collectively raised more than $14 million for different charitable causes, partnering with big-name organizations such as the PGA of America, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospitals, and the LPGA. The organization is expected to facilitate nearly $5 million in nonprofit funding this year alone.
This mission of connecting and supporting people through the sport is deeply intertwined with Sedransk’s personal motivations and history. His father, the same man who introduced him to golf in his youth, died four months before Sedransk founded Member for a Day after a five-year battle with ALS.
“Member for a Day’s legacy will forever be for my father,” he reflected. “I just want to make my dad proud.”
Daniel Polce
