How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And how do you do a year’s worth of work in 90 days? One project at a time.
The LPGA Drive on Championship was recently held on our property here at Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club (Gold Canyon, Ariz.) during the week of March 20-26, 2023. The final decision to have this event here was decided right after the first of the year. This is a rough account of the crazy ride that was essentially 90 days of work that ended in a major success.
They say the devil’s in the details, so that’s where we started.
Here’s what we were looking at:
- 144 players and caddies with a plus 1
- Media meals
- On-course concessions
- Volunteer coffee
- Pro-Am breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Sponsored hospitality areas
- Volunteer dining
And, equally important, a membership that must give up the use of their club and one golf course for a week in peak season. So we needed to ensure they were tended to as well.
In total, more than 15,000 meals were served in a week, working out of one kitchen set up for 200 people a day. All while in our busy season at a very busy club.
To further complicate our lives … the annual Ladies’ Member-Guest golf tournament would begin on March 27—the day after the LPGA event.
Planning
We all know from being in the private club world that the member-guest tournaments are the highlight of the season. Failing is not an option! So, three months out from member guest we planned all the details for that event. We wanted to ensure that members remained our top priority, and we gave our best effort to an important member tournament.
That said, we had to come to grips with realizing that we cannot do everything successfully. So, what went on the chopping block? For us, that was on-course concessions. We hired a catering company to handle all the food and nonalcoholic beverages on the course, and we kept the alcohol sales to be sold under our liquor license. Great theory, but the problem was a perfect storm in Phoenix this year with “the Big Game,” Waste Management Phoenix Open, and the LPGA Drive on Championship all in a row. I woke up one month prior to our event with an email that the catering company was backing out due to exhaustion. For the next three days, our entire focus was ensuring we could provide food on course for a large number of spectators. To bring another caterer to the table, we had to release our hold on the on-course alcohol sales. The thought of not exceeding expectations was worth the loss of a little profit. The most important thing at Superstition Mountain is our member-guest experience. However, it made for a couple of intense days while figuring out the last-minute details.
Once a 10,000-foot overview of the tournament was completed, we had to break it down into smaller manageable parts by location. Player dining, sponsors, member hospitality, media, volunteer lunch, and kitchen, each area having a designated manager and single point of contact. We gave each department the freedom to develop its plan for their area. We had general meetings to ensure everyone knew the big picture and individual meetings to review the details.
Players
The player component for a major LPGA Tournament equated to 1,000 meals per day. Open 5:30 -10:30 a.m. for breakfast and 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. for lunch. We had half an hour to flip the room and buffet daily. I was assured that the first day was going to be a very light day, with players slowly trickling in. That’s not exactly what happened. With a qualifying round on Monday and as the first tournament on U.S. soil for the year, we had a record number of players show up that Monday.
Beyond popular belief, Arizona is not always nice during the spring. Tuesday was our day for rain. Most of you ask what players and caddies do when it rains during a practice round day. They stay inside and hang out. To further complicate matters, we must have the entire dining room employed for a player-only meeting Tuesday night. Once the tournament started on Thursday, someone turned on a focus switch.
Media
The media on the property had their own tent and buffet located 400 yards away. We just needed to have staff to be able to run food back and forth to their area.
Member Hospitality
So, what to do for our members without access to their club for a week? We roped off a large area near our patio that overlooks the 18th green for a member-only experience. On the days of the tournament, we had complementary buffets set up for breakfast and lunch. This area was the unknown to us. We knew in advance how many people we would feed in the players’ only spaces. The real question was how many members and their guests would show up in the hospitality area. The first day of the tournament we found that we were way too conservative with our estimations.
Each tournament day we averaged 750-800 people in the member hospitality area. The good thing was that the menu was not printed anywhere for the members to see. So, adjustments were made over the day to ensure our obligations to the LPGA and our membership were met. A couple of tough choices had to be made. On day three, we cut it a little too close with the amount of bacon on the property. So, the member area did not have bacon that day. Two months later, I still hear about not having bacon on the breakfast buffet.
Menus
With only one kitchen, how did we pull this off? The LPGA had some requirements for the player menus. So, all our menus and planning started there. A variation of the same menu was served in three different locations simultaneously for players, media and member hospitality. The chef partnered with our broad line distributor to have the bulk of our food loaded onto a trailer and parked in the parking lot. As this was a first for most of us, what we thought would get us through the week lasted three days.
Most of the culinary crew worked seven days that week. In true back-of-the-house fashion, I walked in one morning, and the breakfast crew plays Christmas music. I stopped in my tracks and gave them a look of WTH… their response “We feel like little elves working away.” If you’re in the F&B biz, you know – whatever it takes.
The Aftermath.
The tournament ended on Sunday, Ladies’ Member Guest started Monday night, and the kitchen had to re-prep the entire menu for service on Tuesday. Not to mention an adrenalin hangover. 90 days of planning, eight straight days, working 110 plus hours, nonstop action, all glued to my cell phone, waiting to fix the issues that arose. If you have ever come down off a great high, you know what I felt for the next three days. Even with the scrutiny and pressure of performing for Ladies’ Member Guest, there was a hungover feeling.
Even after sharing all of this, I am leaving out so much of the process. Close to half of my day, every day, was dedicated to this event for 90 days. As I look back, the overwhelming feeling is pride. Our members were proud of their club. The staff was proud of their accomplishments and proud of the club where they work, pride in the management team who worked together for a common goal, and a feeling of pride that our property successfully hosted more than 36,000 people in four days, including some of the best professional golfers in the world.
