2015 US Women’s Open Championship (Lancaster, PA)

ELA Sport Engineers, Designers, and GIS Department worked with Lancaster Country Club and United States Golf Association officials on the 70th U.S. Women’s Open, the most well-attended Women’s Open Tournament ever.

When the United States Golf Association named Lancaster Country Club the host course for its 70th U.S. Women’s Open, the USGA knew it would have to work closely with a local planning firm to provide “Championship Mapping and Design Services” for the tournament.

Why? Because hosting such a historic, signature event doesn’t just happen accidentally.

It took the USGA and ELA Sport, a division of ELA Group, Inc., approximately eighteen months to fully-plan the site logistics and routing of traffic on nearby Routes 23, 30, and 222 (including coordination with local municipalities and various County and State agencies); coordinate both special-permit and satellite parking facilities; facilitate accommodations for disabled spectators; and, prepare mapping and wayfinding signage for the Tournament. All of this had to occur while being as least-disruptive as possible to the Club’s neighbors and the larger community.

These initiatives’ central focus was ELA Group’s GIS, Transportation, and Athletic Facilities Design Groups. Our work, completed in consultation with the Tournament’s organizers, yielded the largest Women’s Open ever contested, coordinated to near-flawless perfection. The 2015 Open witnessed record attendance of over 135,000 spectators; the satellite parking/shuttle-bus services and wayfinding signage/mapping were deemed unqualified successes.

Our work garnered the following praise from the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open Committee: “We are truly grateful for your patience, enthusiasm, commitment, engagement, expertise, and assistance throughout the process leading up to, during, and through our teardown phases of the Championship.”