HOSTING A MAJOR golf championship is typically a onceinalifetime experi ence. I have been fortunate to host three major golf championships, two PGA Championships, one U.S. Open, two Tour Championships, a Senior PGA Champion ship and a U.S. Men’s Amateur Champi onship during my 27 years as GM/COO at Southern Hills Country Club.
The main constant in hosting any championship is developing and cultivating relationships and networking with the golf organizations that conduct them— PGA, USGA, PGA Tour or LPGA. I have spent more than two decades developing relationships with the staff members of the PGA and USGA, their CEOs, presidents and executive committee members of each organization. I have attended many of their championships and annual meetings and met with their respective team members individually to understand their decision-making process in site selection, golf course requirements, logistical needs, transportation of spectators, parking, corporate hospitality and ticket sales, volunteer support, enhancements needed to improve a club’s chance of being selected and community and state support for parking, police, fire and emergency services medical authority (EMSA).
Each organization is different in the way it considers and chooses host sites. It is timeconsuming but necessary to put all your effort into lobbying for your club to host any championship. All the legwork that goes into developing and cultivating these relationships pays off, but it might not be on your timeline.
Committees and Volunteers
When you are selected to host an amateur or professional golf championship, the planning, organization and logistics start to kick into gear. Your club leader ship has probably already identified one or two members to serve as tournament/ championship chairman and vice chair man. The tournament chairman and vice chairman identify members who would be good candidates to serve on the event executive committee, which is a group of people that includes your GM/COO, head PGA professional or director of golf, golf course superintendent and no more than five members.
Committee chairs act as the points of contact between their volunteers and the championship office. There are normally five or six division or committee chairs: administration, championship services, contestant services, sales and marketing, and scoring and spectator services. There are subcommittees of these main commit tees and each committee chair identifies members or friends to fill those subcom mittees and volunteer positions. For the 2022 PGA Championship, more than 3,500 volunteers supported the PGA and Southern Hills.
Logistics
In 2017, Southern Hills Country Club was awarded the 2021 Senior PGA Championship and the 2030 PGA Championship. In August 2018, the PGA team arrived onsite to start the planning for the 2021 Senior PGA; we had just started a restoration of the championship golf course, led by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, with the intent of restoring it back
to Perry Maxwell’s original 1935 routing. In preparation for the championships, we added 350 yards of length to the golf course, repositioned bunkers from 290 to 315 yards off the tee, reintroduced six creeks that were removed by different greens committees the last 60 years, renovated the bunkers to a more natu- ral style, rebuilt all 25 greens to USGA specifications and installed hydronics under all the greens. Gil and Jim did an amazing job restoring the course to its Perry Maxwell intent and reintroducing Maxwell’s rolls around the greens.
On January 20, 2021, the PGA awarded the 2022 PGA Championship to Southern Hills Country Club—just four months from the 2021 Senior PGA Championship and 16 months from the first tee shot of the 2022 PGA Championship. Luckily,
we had completed the site plan for the 2021 Senior PGA and had the PGA staff onsite. We were fortunate to expand the 2021 site plan to support the needs and infrastructure for the 2022 PGA and host back-to-back major championships.
The site plan and logistical require- ments needed to support a major cham- pionship is like putting a puzzle together. One of the main requirements of hosting a major championship is having the land to support the necessary infrastructure; usually, the total required acreage on your property and/or adjacent to it is
275 acres. When Southern Hills hosted the 2007 PGA Championship, we used approximately 200 acres; this year, we used all 300—the 2022 PGA was 40% bigger than in 2007.
The broadcast compound this year was more than six acres and supported CBS, ESPN, International T.V., Sky Sports and the Golf Channel, along with on-site parking for more than 400 broadcast personnel vehicles. Multiple access points and wide cart paths were needed around the property to support the build-out, tear down and servicing of vendor compounds, corporate hospitality and concessions facilities.
The infrastructure needed to support the 2022 PGA was beyond my expectations:
- We had more than 300 structures built on-site in addition to 65 mobile trailers.
- We had three separate vendor com- pounds that supported more than 35 national and 15 local vendors needed for the build-out, comprising over 4,000 workers.
- The vendors constructed over 500,000 square feet of flooring, 350,000 square feet of tenting and 250,000 square feet of mating.
The build-out started February 21, three months prior to the start of the championship.
Parking and transportation for the membership, media, patrons and corpo- rate hospitality is a crucial element and the first impression that your patrons will have of the championship. For the 2022 PGA, we needed 15,000 parking spots to support 40,000 attendees. We leased 120 55-passenger buses to transport patrons from two miles away. On-site parking for players, caddies and PGA officials requires about 350-500 spaces.
Due to having Bermuda grass fair- ways and not over-seeding, the Board of Southern Hills decided to limit golf carts to members with physical limitations that prevented them from walking, starting in October 2021. On March
1, 2022, we stopped using golf carts entirely and closed the golf course to play three weeks before the start of the championship. All other facilities closed one week prior to the event. We reo- pened the golf course and all facilities five days after the championship.
Hospitality
Our corporate hospitality sales were robust for a secondary market. We sold 42 chalets (tents), 28 suites, and 60
tables of 10, and the 1916 Club sold more than 3,000 tickets. Our membership embraced the 2022 PGA; 75% of all corporate hospitality sold was sold to members. That’s a staggering number and shows the genuine support of this great event!
We were fortunate to be able to design a member hospitality area adjacent to the 7th green. This area encompassed a member hospitality tent, viewing suite and beer garden. We sold over 3,000 tickets that allowed members to access these areas and Snug Harbor, our summer restaurant overlooking the pool. For the first time in the history of the PGA, the ticket price for members included food (breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack). Southern Hills was responsible for feeding ticketed mem- bers and their guests, PGA hospitality, players, players’ families and our own staff of over 500 people. We served two meals per day and afternoon snacks in all outlets—more than 30,000 meals during the course of the seven days of the championship.
Hosting the PGA Championship was one of the most rewarding experiences in my career. We were fortunate and blessed to work with a great team of pro- fessionals at the PGA, led by Bryan Karns and David Charles. My team at Southern Hills was absolutely the best, they did an amazing job and I am so proud of them and their accomplishments!
What is most gratifying is the pride and enthusiasm that it brings to the membership, local Tulsa community and the state of Oklahoma to host a major championship, in our case, the PGA Championship.
Nick Sidorakis, CCM, is Char of the NCA Board of Directors and general manager/COO of Southern Hills Country Club.