Behind the Scenes at the U.S. Open Golf TournamentKent State students in hospitality management and sports management hit the links in June, but they didn’t play a round of golf. Instead they helped conduct the “world series” of the sport: the U.S. Open Golf Championship Tournament.
Thirty students from College of Education, Health, and Human Services made their way to the Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa., as part of a three-credit special topics course that provided first-hand experience with major event planning at an international sporting event. As part of the course, students had to research different aspects of the large-scale event and report back to class for a comprehensive experience. Some of the students’ topics included tournament admissions, advertising, caddy management, the leaderboard, event security, ticket sales and the uniform committee. All of the students worked in food and beverage operations at the U.S. Open. But some students, like sports management major Cody Demster, served the pros in the player hospitality room. “I got the luck of the draw,” Demster says. “All the major players were there; it was like the world series of golf.” But it wasn’t about serving drinks to high-profile sports pros. Chris Heiman, exploratory major, says that he learned about being prepared for different situations at a large sporting event and about the types of people involved in the behind-the-scenes execution of the U.S. Open. Chris Heiman particularly enjoyed being in the thick of the action: “We were right there,” he says. “Everything went smoothly the whole week.” Assistant Professor of Hospitality Management Rob Heiman in the School of Family and Consumer Studies, created the course with alumnus Chris Hampton, assistant general manager of the Oakmont Country Club. The plan for the course took shape when Hampton visited one of Heiman’s classes as a guest lecturer. Hampton and Rob Heiman set up a course that would expose students to what it takes to run an event on the scale of the U.S. Open, and give the students ample networking opportunities and future contacts. The students, for their part, helped the U.S. Open, too — they helped set up over 7,000 meals each day of the tournament. (“Food [at any event] is critical,” Rob Heiman says.) And their participation did not go unnoticed: Rob Heiman says that industry professionals from the 2008 U.S. Golf Open and the Columbus Memorial Golf Tournament are interested in having Kent State students make their events successes as well. For more information about the tournament, visit the U.S. Open Golf Championship Web site. By Anna Riggenbach |
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