Golf events that generate tourism dollars were up for discussion during Monday’s Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau meeting.

Jeff McGill, the golf pro at Bowling Green Country Club, reported to the board about events his club has planned this year, many of which will benefit from an electronic scoreboard the club installed with the help of a special projects grant from the CVB.

“Thank you folks for investing in us,” McGill said. “We have gotten nothing but rave reviews.”

The course received a little more than $26,000 in July 2006 from the special projects fund.

From April through the first week in October, the course is hosting at least 12 major tournaments, with an estimated 2,800 players.

McGill said tourism rounds result in about 20 percent of the play.

One of the largest events the club hosts is the Kentucky High School Athletic Association State Golf Championship, with 750 players over five days. Those players and their families stay in area hotels and purchase food here.

The scoreboard and scoring system is a key element in that tournament, he said.

Details are still being worked out for a Golf Channel tournament that will be hosted by Bowling Green Country Club later this year.

Hotelier and board member Leon Volkert brought up this summer’s Junior Ryder Cup and the impact it will have on Bowling Green.

The tournament, which has international visibility, will be hosted at the Club at Olde Stone from Sept. 15-16.

“That will bring us good exposure,” Volkert said.

McGill said the tournament will feature guests and players not only from across the country but from Europe as well.

He reminded Volkert and other hoteliers at the meeting what good guests golfers - both adult and youth - make.

“They are well behaved,” he said, noting that they are early to meetings, polite to their neighbors and follow the rules.

In other matters, the board heard what tourism staff are doing to increase visitors to the area. An advertising campaign this summer will be aired on a Nashville television station that covers all of middle Tennessee, part of southern Kentucky and northern Alabama, according to Katie Frassinelli, marketing director.

Frassinelli said previous studies have shown that marketing dollars spent there result in visitors here.

Sports marketing director Amy Cardwell continues to recruit major sporting events for the area that bring in participants to stay in area hotels. One area in which she will focus is in soccer tournaments.

Cardwell said previously large soccer tournaments were turned away because of a lack of local support. Cardwell said she is trying to encourage local soccer organizations to get behind such tournaments because they have a great impact on the economy.