Blane Merritt, the 1998 Gulf States PGA Section Merchandiser of the Year for Public Facilities, is the PGA general manager at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tenn.

Every year we hold a fun tournament for our members on the Saturday morning during the The Players Championship. Since the event is held at TPC Sawgrass, a fellow Tournament Players Club, our members obviously have a special affinity for it. We write Tour players’ names on poker chips and put them into a bag. Then, before our golfers tee off on the first hole, they reach their hand into a bag and randomly choose a playing “partner.” Our golfers play their round, but we don’t crown a winner until after the Tour event finishes for the day, when we add the score of the Tour player each member drew for a final net score. You could do a similar event with just about any major championship or tour event – we used to do these events for each of the majors, but have since scaled back to make it more unique. Lastly, for our event we also have a $10,000 hole-in-one prize on the 11th hole.

The event is a $10 tee game that usually sees around 60 participants, with that money mainly going towards gift credit. More importantly, though, such events are a fun way to not only get your golfers out on the course for something that’s a little different, it also gets them more involved in the sport of golf as a whole. After all, when your final score depends on a Tour player doing well, you’re going to be watching their play that afternoon – hopefully purchasing some food and beverages while you’re there!