Before 9 a.m. and hours before any player would arrive, the golf bros in their Peter Millar polos and Hokas began ordering vodka crans.

A few feet away, the smell of a freshly lit cigar wafted on the cool Saturday morning breeze. A few green foldable armchairs line the fairway along the 10th hole and picnic tables set up with open red and white umbrellas near the green. The large restaurant tent along the hole begins to populate with coffees and beers.

The tournament’s website describes it as “Our version of the 16th hole at the Phoenix Open.”

Dubbed the “White Claw Watering Hole,” the Regions Tradition constructed a series of build-outs around the 10th hole including several bars, restaurants and shopping spaces each year since 2019.

It suggests wanting to be like the Phoenix Open in that there are a series of bars surrounding the par 3 hole and not exactly a definite way to keep the noise down as virtually every other golf hole would require.

It would be an attraction with booze and food and activities at the golf course that don’t involve golf. It’s not a stadium

But after the 2024 Pheonix Open turned from an enviable showcase of modern golf into a drunken, rowdy, overcrowded muddy mess, is that what Greystone Golf and Country Club wants to emulate?

“Everybody is looking for ways to get people more and more involved,” Tournament Director Gene Hallman said. “While the game of golf is experiencing tremendous growth, it’s still just a relatively small minority that play golf in this country. If you just rely on the avid golfers to be your fans, you’re going to come up short. You’ve got to get the non-golfers to your golf event.”

Originally, tournament director Gene Hallman said, they had set up similar stands on the 17th hole. But the golf course at Greystone is shaped like a figure eight, meaning that to get anywhere other than the 1st hole, 9th hole, 10th hole and 18th hole is a serious walk.

Few people actually went out to the 17th. There aren’t many concession stands or stands of any kind set up around the course outside of the area right near the clubhouse as it is.

So Hallman and his team moved to the Watering Hole concept on the 10th hole, a par 3 that was far easier to access.

The set up includes an open-to-the-public Wave Bar behind the tee and a Redmont Vodka-sponsored publicly open bar behind the green. On the near side of the hole is the Margarita Grill, a ticketed restaurant and bar. On the far side is a cigar tent.

Of course, this arrangement is far smaller than the 16th hole in Arizona. The Phoenix Open builds a stadium surrounding the hole but saw the event have to turn away ticket holders and stop alcohol sales becaue there were too many spectators on the course.

That isn’t an issue Birmingham has to deal with. Being a PGA Tour Champions event, crowds will never match what the PGA Tour will have. It’s the difference between the Phoenix Open catering to an established experience and the Regions Tradition looking for new ways to sell tickets.

“We have less territory to cover in terms of watching for unruly behavior. But we do have adequate secruity and marshalls,” Hallman said. “And on occasion over the years, we’ve had someone who’s had too much alcohol. We monitor it very closely with our bartenders to make sure that doesn’t happen. But what you can’t know is how much someone has drank before they got to the event.”

By late morning Saturday and the first few groups of golfers coming through, it isn’t loud or rowdy at the Watering Hole. Frankly, hardly anyone is watching golf. It’s an arrangement of men in pastel untucked golf shirts as if in a competition to wear the most garb from the Masters and women in flowery sundresses or bright Lululemon skirts. Of worn-out Nikes and Golden Goose. Of friends hanging out at the bars with their colorful cocktails or families at the picnic tables eating tacos.

At the Phoenix Open, fans boo if a golfer’s tee shot misses the green and cheer if he hits it on. Around 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Tradition, former Masters winner Mike Weir hit his tee shot and walked up to the fairway to his shot on the green with no welcome or notice.

The closest the Tradition came to that was a tent near the driving range run by the PGA Superstore running a “Closest to the Pin” challenge in a golf simulator. On Friday, the simulator created a virutal 16th hole at the Phoenix Open, with a speaker to boo fans if their shot missed the green and cheer them if they made it. There were far more boos than cheers.

At most golf tournaments, marshalls hold up signs that say “Quiet Please!” But this is Alabama, so the signs say “Hush Y’all!”

There’s only so much hushing to be done over the light drone of the crowd noise and humming of the Margarita Grill air conditioning unit. Bob Estes hit an errant shot into that crowd Saturday that a group had to take an umbrella off their table and another had to move the table entirely to give Estes a line back to the green. Some of the first actual golf watching of the day came around 1:00 when John Daly’s group came through.

“Which Hooters John?!” a fan called out, referencing Daly’s Hooters’ sponsored bag.

And when the final group cleared the 10th green around 3:50, the vast majority stayed put. The bars were still open for another 90 minutes. What the was point in leaving? They weren’t going to venture out into the back nine away from the clubhouse. There aren’t many on-course concessions away from the area near the clubhouse.

This is exactly where Hallman wanted fans to be anyway. Even if golf was happening elsewhere.

“Well, we are on the side of having an active fan engagement,” Hallman said. “If a player or two is thrown off, as long as we’re not disturbing their swing, then it’s just something we’re going to continue to do.”

If that’s Hallman’s plan — to create a moneymaker that sells tickets to those who don’t care about golf and that continues to sell drinks regardless of golf even occurring — then maybe he has created the intended emulation.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]