It takes a whole year and an army of people to prepare for one of the best weeks in golf; Tim Cotroneo takes a look behind the scenes of THE PLAYERS Championship
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uring the first week in May, a good night’s sleep becomes a precious thing for Hector Gonzalez. The Director of Food and Beverage at TPC Sawgrass is one of the people responsible for ensuring that spectators at THE PLAYERS Championship get fed—all 180,000 of them. When asked what one thing kept him up at night in the days leading up to the opening Thursday round, Gonzalez, who since 2007 not only has coordinated clubhouse-area menus but also hires additional tournament staff, could only laugh and reply, “You want just one thing that keeps me from sleeping?”
spring 2015
For the PGA TOUR and tournament Proud Partner PwC, THE PLAYERS is a premiere chance to celebrate the best in the game with four days of top golf, hospitality and service. Making it all possible isn’t easy, which is why everyone involved in preparing for THE PLAYERS— hospitality staff, administration, groundskeeping, and more— seems to have the May 5 start date tattooed on their psyche. The TPC Sawgrass agronomy staff, specifically, lives with the deadline quite literally staring them in the face. A clock on the left-hand side of the group’s website— tpcsawgrassagronomy.com—relentlessly counts down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds left until THE PLAYERS begins. Tom Vlach probably sees that clock in his sleep.
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