21 Ideas for Golf Events

In July 2013, ESPN's ESPY awards preparty in Los Angeles had a golf-inspired dessert setup from DNA Events, in which guests plucked doughnut holes on toothpick tees from an AstroTurf-covered buffet.

The Humana Challenge (formerly known as the Bob Hope Classic and to be known as the CareerBuilder challenge for its next iteration) is part of the P.G.A. Tour’s early season West Coast swing each winter in California's Coachella Valley. In January, producer Toast brought new ideas to rework the tournament’s opening and closing parties at the Renaissance. At the opening event, a putting challenge pitted amateurs against pros in a contest to make the most holes in one. Models in custom caddie wardrobes staffed the challenge.

Throughout the party, Golf Channel commentators Scott McCarron and Rich Lerner discussed the pairings as well as the events for the week ahead at a sports-TV-like set.

Toast custom built the 19th Hole Bar for the Humana Challenge. It included real marble countertops, LED backlighting, and mirrored shelves.

A second flag-style centerpiece created visual variety at the Humana Challenge closing party.

Northern Trust Open and TaylorMade Golf hosted a drive-in movie screening during Oscar week in Los Angeles. But instead of watching from their cars, the crowd of about 400 watched from golf carts.

Tide launched a new laundry detergent in 2010 with with a Miami party that included four sports activations, each branded with the new product's logo. At a golf station, logo flags flew over a three-hole putting green.

Golf balls served as eye-catching lettering at Tide's sports-minded event.

During a Washington event last September known as Parking Day—a way for community members to collaborate on creating temporary parks in parking spaces—the retailer Flor created a putting green using its own modular carpet tile product.

As part of the the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in 2014, the Celebrity Chef Golf Tournament offered mini cones served in a presentation meant to evoke a sand trap. Chef José Andrés hosted the event, and his restaurant Katsuya provided the food.

The third annual Puma Open in Miami in 2009 included what was known as the Golf Pong hole. The activity was akin to the drinking game beer pong, and players chipped golf balls into six large red barrels.

An illuminated tunnel was a budget-friendly way to make a highly visual impact at the 25,000-square-foot booth for TaylorMade-Adidas Golf at the P.G.A. Merchandise Show in 2012. The 51-foot green exhibit showed the distance golfers gain when they use brand's RocketBallz equipment.

At Lacoste's Coachella party in 2013, guests who scored a hole in one at a putting green took home headphones from the brand.

In 2007 for the UBS Golf Challenge promotion in New York, stanchions played up the theme. Clubs sitting upon small plots of grass decorated the crowd-control objects.

In September 2014, as part of New York Fashion Week, Refinery29 hosted a three-day pop-up miniature nine-hole golf course inspired by local designers. The club included fashion-minded details like a cage and floor full of studs for Alexander Wang, fabric wraps at Diane von Furstenberg, and caddies in Topshop uniforms with R29 logo visors.

At the Refinery29 event, colorful golf balls helped communicate the brand's identity.

The second annual AT&T National in Washington in 2008 included the Chevron chalet, where a golf ball and a bit of grass decorated the bottom of a floral display.

As part of 2007’s Professional Convention Management Association's 51st annual meeting in Canada, catering options included a chocolate and berry dessert that took the form of golf balls.

At the P.G.A. Show in Florida in 2011, Callaway used dartboard decorations in its putting area, which promoted the brand's new D.A.R.T. putter.

In 2013, four hospitality groups linked up with the P.G.A. of America to introduce Orlando planners to the game of golf; the area has more than 100 courses, and many of the meetings and conventions that visit town have a golf outing component. At the two-hour mixer, about 50 guests learned basic concepts of the game at hands-on stations.

Sure, toilet seat decor may not be for every event. But it can inspire creative thinking: Auction items like birdhouses in the shape of outhouses and designer-painted toilet seats generated buzz among guests at the Bottoms Up fund-raiser in Toronto in 2010, which raised awareness for colon cancer screening. A toilet-seat-decorated putting green promoted the Colorectal Cancer Screening Initiative Foundation's upcoming charity golf tournament.