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Championship Golf In San Diego

Events

San Diego had a unique opportunity this past year in that “America’s Finest City” hosted three different levels of professional golf. The Nationwide Tour Championship, featuring golf ’s top up-and-coming players was held at Barona Creek Golf Club in November of 2007. The PGA TOUR Buick Invitational was held in January 2008, where Tiger Woods defended his title for the fourth straight time. And finally, the USGA hosted the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in June, where Tiger Woods battled Rocco Mediate in one of the greatest duels in golf history.

The Role Of The Century Club

The Century Club of San Diego, a local nonprofi t organization, was responsible for managing both the Nationwide Tour Championship and the Buick Invitational and to an extent locally assisted with the coordination of the 2008 U.S. Open. The Century Club of San Diego is proud of its long tenure as a successful major sporting event management organization.

What We Do

The incredible amount of detail that goes into producing every tournament is challenging and can be overwhelming on occasion. To give you, our patrons, an inside look into golf tournament orchestration, the following specifics are a few of the many that allow our tournaments to run successfully:

• Providing security for the players and spectators alike;
  
• Supplying food & beverages for the players and their families, caddies, tournament offi cials and spectators;
  
• Arranging for courtesy cars for the players;
  
• Assisting with player accommodations;
  
• Providing child care for the player’s family;
  
• Organizing parking and shuttle logistics for 15,000+ cars;
  
• Erecting numerous grandstands for spectators;
  
• Providing hospitality venues and food and beverages for sponsors;
  
• Providing restroom facilities for players and spectators;
  
• Coordinating multiple Pro-Ams for hundreds of Professional and amateur golfers;
  
• Managing and training thousands of volunteers as well as providing each one uniforms and food and beverages;
  
• Producing and distributing tickets and credentials for access to the tournament;
  
• Coordinating on-course medical services and developing emergency plans Scheduling police and traffic control services;
  
• Constructing temporary offices for tournament officials, sponsors and volunteers, and a Media Center for local and national media outlets;
  
• Installing 20+ miles of rope and stakes, 250 telephone lines, 150 computer lines, live feed to 75 televisions in hospitality venues;
  
• And much more.

Teamwork

As you may well imagine, the key to successfully managing a professional golf event is to have core staff members that understand the clear definition of event strategy and have in-depth knowledge as well as ingenuity to produce an event from inception to planning to on-site management. The ability to develop key relationships with central groups such as the PGA TOUR, its players, and vendors is vital to pulling off a successful event but an even more important connection needs to be made with the fans. Without golf ’s loyal patrons, a perfectly run event would not be successful.

Every tournament is challenging and to give you a fl avor for some of the more interesting differences in the three tournaments held this past year, the table above will give you an insight as to the magnitude of each event.

As you can sense, Championship Golf in San Diego has a rich tradition and we at the Century Club are fortunate to have the support of the City and the Community to have been able to be successfully involved in all three of these major sporting events within a very brief eight month period.

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