What does it take to pull off one of the largest, most prestigious sporting events in the Charlotte area? Week of planning, or is it months? You'd be surprised to learn that the process is a 12 month endeavor. From the close of one tournament year, to the beginning of the next, the tournament office works around the calendar to bring the excitement and grandeur of the tournament life. Here are some of the activities that are being worked on during that time:

• Ticket sales and distribution
• Web site planning and updates
• Patron communications
• Sponsor events
• Meeting with clients, sponsors and vendor
• Executive staff visits to PGA TOUR headquarters and other PGA TOUR events

What does it take to properly find, screen, train, and maintain the best corps of volunteers across the PGATOUR? It's quite an undertaking but with skilled leadership and dedicated volunteers it doesn't take long to see that the wheels are turning year round. Here are just some of the behind the scenes activities that take place in the volunteer area:

• Volunteer application process
• Meetings with committee chairs and hole captains
• Scheduling volunteers
• Providing training materials and new information for the upcoming event
• Volunteer uniforms distribution

What is tournament construction? In the words of Tony Schuster, Tournament Director of Operations, it's "Destroying a perfectly good golf
course, then putting it back together."

From scaffolding to security, telephone lines to temporary offices, restrooms to real time scoring; tournament operations is a year round function. Here are more of the vital relationships and areas of responsibility that fall under this broad function:

• Operations
• Vendors
• Tents and trailers
• Power, cable, and phone lines
• Temporary kitchens
• Porta-Potties
• Tournament facilities construction
• Transportation
• Security