The Senior PGA Championship has the distinction of being by far the oldest tournament on the Champions Tour, so it’s no small irony that a guy just 29 years old is running the show for the 2010 version of the event.
When the best senior players in the world tee it up May 27-30 of next year at Colorado Golf Club in Parker, some of the competitors will be more than twice the age of event’s championship director. Jeromy Manser has risen quickly through the ranks of the PGA of America to the point where he earned a promotion in November that made him the man responsible for overseeing one of the major championships on the senior tour.
Manser was 28 when he was named, but has since turned the ripe old age of 29. Suffice it to say that such positions don’t often go to twentysomethings.
“As you progress, you move up the ladder,” Manser said in a recent phone interview. “It’s definitely a feather in the cap. I have the opportunity to not focus on just one aspect of a championship, but on the overall success of a major championship.”
For its major events, the PGA of America appoints a small staff that actually lives in the community for more than a year. Manser, who leads that staff for the 2010 Senior PGA, moved in December to Englewood, a central location from which he can make regular visits to corporate clients and Colorado Golf Club.
Despite his age, Manser is no stranger to some of golf’s biggest events; it’s just that this is the first time he’s held the title of championship director. His last two positions were championship operations manager for the 2007 PGA Championship in Tulsa, Okla., and tournament operations manager for the 2008 Ryder Cup in Louisville, Ky.
“I didn’t become full-time at the PGA until 2006,” he said. “In three years to go from administration to operations manager at the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup, to being a championship director, it”˜s the progression I wanted. It may have come faster than I had anticipated, but I”˜m prepared and ready.”
Generally speaking, Manser said the PGA of America puts a championship director on-site for four years for the Ryder Cup, three years for a PGA Championship, and two years for a Senior PGA. But because Colorado Golf Club wasn’t announced as host site for the 2010 Senior PGA until November of last year, Manser’s stay will be more abbreviated than normal. And his to-do list will have to be tackled a little more quickly than is typical.
“Ideally, it would be two years, but I don’t see a drawback with only 18 months,” said Manser, who was born in Ohio and went to college there. “I don’t feel rushed at all. I know the support Colorado has shown” for the PGA Tour’s International, and past LPGA and Champions Tour majors.
Manser, who played varsity baseball at Mount Union College in Ohio, will lead a Colorado-based staff of four leading up to the Senior PGA, including a yet-to-be-hired operations manager. Among the areas Manser will oversee are hospitality, 1,600 volunteers, product sales, tickets, promotions, advertising, transportation, parking, and political and community relations. In the political realm, Manser said he’ll be establishing relationships with the governor and local mayors, among others.
Basically, Manser will be responsible for most things outside the ropes, while Kerry Haigh, the PGA’s managing director of championships, will oversee course set-up and matters between the ropes. Haigh is expected to pay a visit to Colorado Golf Club in late June.
The Senior PGA was first held in 1937, but next year’s is the first scheduled for a site west of Oklahoma.
