A Major Undertaking: Food Services for the PGA Championship

Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, OK hosted the 2022 PGA Championship, which took place May 19-22. The food service aspect ran seven days, from Monday through Sunday. The club served over 30,000 meals for the championship.

Southern Hills was responsible for feeding ticketed members in its member tent and viewing suite adjacent to the seventh green and Snug Harbor. It was also responsible for two corporate hospitality areas, PGA hospitality, the players, players’ families in the clubhouse, and its staff of over 500 people.

The club served two meals per day and afternoon snacks in multiple outlets. The corporate hospitality venues comprised 42 chalets (tents), 28 suites, 60 tables of 10 at the Champions Club and the 1916 Club, with over 3,000 people; concessions were handled by an outside food service contractor, who took care of the more than 200,000 regular tournament ticket holders.

So, how does a club prepare for a major tournament?

According to Nick Sidorakis , GM/COO, (pictured above ) “We received the call from the PGA that Southern Hills Country Club was awarded the 2022 PGA Championship 16 months before the event due to a venue change. We would normally have two and a half to three years to plan and organize the championship. So, we started the planning process that day – January 20, 2021.

“The member support we received in hosting the 2022 PGA Championship on such short notice was exceptional. We sold over 3,000 member tickets which provided access to the Snug Harbor, pool deck, member hospitality tent, seventh hole viewing suite and beer garden venues. All member tickets sold included breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack. The result was F&B revenue exceeding $2 million in just seven days.” ?

Sidorakis estimated the food costs to be less than that of typical catered and banquet events, providing a healthy margin.

“We hired an additional 150 staff members at various positions for the week as well as another 60 golf course maintenance volunteers from all over the country,” Sidorakis said. “This was in addition to our 350 regular staff members. We built a satellite kitchen to support the member tent, viewing suite and beer garden that served over 1,200 people at a time.

“Our biggest day was Sunday, when we served over 7,000 meals to members, PGA hospitality, players and their families and corporate hospitality in the clubhouse and had four kitchens operating at a time.”

Two other key players dealing with the F&B side of the tournament were executive chef Alex Pierce and purchasing manager Sherri Scott. Pierce and Scott started planning in October, nearly seven months before the tournament. Pierce created the menus and planned for kitchen equipment, storage, staffing, training and execution of the meals and snacks. ?

According to Pierce, planning was the most important aspect.?

“We had breakfast and lunch buffets to plan for multiple venues, as well as an a la carte menu for the players and a special menu for the champions dinner,” Pierce said. “We also had to focus on the cross-utilization of raw materials.?

“This was not our first major tournament, so we had experience from past events and focused on what worked and what did not. Our effort from the start was aimed at getting every aspect of the plan as bulletproof as we could. We worked at it nonstop, right up until the tournament week began.”

Interestingly, Pierce only had a few weeks to plan for the champions dinner, since traditionally the previous year’s champion specifies the theme and the courses. In this case, that would have been Phil Mickelson, who ended up not taking part in the tournament. Mickelson had arranged for his own chef to prepare the meal. ?

Pierce found out three weeks before the dinner that Mickelson’s chef would not take part and it would in fact be up to him to develop the menu. He decided on an Oklahoma-based theme elevated to a Michelin-star level, and furious planning was again required.

“Once we got to Monday of the tournament week, the anticipation and excitement level felt by my team was palpable,” said Pierce. “We would wake up at 2:45 a.m. and spend the next 19 hours executing. By Thursday everyone was drained. I told them if they could push through to Friday at 2 p.m., it would all be downhill from there. It was exhausting work, but they did an amazing job. All the planning and preparation paid off.”?

None of this works without food or beverage, and that responsibility fell to Scott, who worked with Pierce once the menus were completed to determine what to order. ?

“We had about two months to figure out what we needed, and we used member, staff, player, player families and corporate hospitality customer count estimates as well as the requirements for PGA hospitality based on their numbers from recent years,” said Scott. “We also had to plan for a charity concert, as well as broadcasters and future sites receptions.

“Then we broke down the menus into raw components and started compiling order quantities. We used one mainline vendor along with some local produce vendors. Deliveries were restricted to arrive between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. each day. No receiving was allowed after that. We made quantity adjustments as we went along.” ??

Scott made extensive use of her F&B management system to aid in the process.?

“We were able to easily handle the ordering and receiving as well as take full inventories before and after the event with the system,” Scott said. “We used requisitions and transfers through the system to identify products and costs associated with each venue.?

“We used variance reporting to determine where we may have missed transfers and made the adjustments. As a result, we were quickly able to provide Mr. Sidorakis with accurate costs and sales for each venue.”

After a stellar career as one of the club industry’s foremost general managers, Sidorakis will be retiring at the end of 2023.?

“I have been blessed to host seven championships at Southern Hills, including three major championships – two PGAs and one US Open. It has been such a rewarding experience over the last 27 years here at Southern Hills,” said Sidorakis. “It was a perfect last dance.”??BR

Bill Schwartz is the founder and CEO of System Concepts, Inc. (SCI). Based in Scottsdale, AZ, SCI specializes in F&B procurement and inventory management and is the developer of the FOOD-TRAK Food and Beverage Management System. Bill can be reached at (480) 951-8011 or [email protected].?