When I ventured off to the Greater Hartford Open this summer it was the first time I stepped foot at a golf tournament. I had a blast, I drank some beer, walked around on a beautiful day and saw some guys bomb the ball 300+ yards. One think I noticed while I was there was that there are an incredibly large amount of volunteers. Most of them just stand in a singularly spot on the course and hold up their arms or hold up little signs to tell you to be silent. It's not exactly a difficult job just kind of boring, because while you get to watch golf you probably can't drink beer while doing it.But apparently a lot of people want to volunteer for the Ryder Cup. So many people want to volunteer for the Ryder Cup that they have to reject people. So many people want to volunteer for the Ryder Cup that they can get them to pay to volunteer and still have too many applicants. Sure the reward for volunteering (16 hours of work) is that they receive an a upgraded ticket worth $555 dollars which they can utilize when they are not working.
The fee for these volunteers is $220, so lets say that they are working 16 hours over the 3 days and the tournament goes somewhere around 10 hours a day (complete estimate 2 rounds a day over the first two days). So sure they get the ticket at less than 50%, but they'll be working for just under 50% for free. Doesn't seem like a bargain to me.
The Ryder Cup in all has 3,600 volunteers paying $220 dollars a piece or 792,000 in all. If that isn't solid business I don't know what is.
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