Southern Hills Keeps Tradition Alive With Classic Scoreboard

The old-time manual scoreboard is one of the most unique things fans and golfers were able to see on the course this weekend at Southern Hills.

Volunteers scale a ladder to make updates to the leaderboard while bringing back nostalgia on the course.  

"You see it at all the classic tournaments. You see it at the U.S. Open. You see it at the PGA (Championship) and you see it at The Masters every year,” golf fan Ryan Collins said. “It’s kind of neat to see things the way they used to be done.”  

The Monster Board serves as a reminder for golf fans of yesteryear before digital leaderboards became commonplace.  

A ladder combined with numbers and letters have told the story of where the leaders are on the golf course.

As the sport has evolved, so too will the future of Southern Hills’ leaderboard.  

When the PGA Championship returns to Southern Hills in 2022, the Monster Board will be gone. It will be replaced with a new state-of-the-art digital leaderboard.

“I know this is how our world is going, but it is kind of sad to lose some of the traditional side of things," golf fan Taylor Sliauter said.

Just as the stress hits the players to make a shot on the course, it goes hand-in-hand for the workers of the Monster Board.

"When the players change their lines and we have to reorganize the entire board and you are trying to catch up with everybody, that’s the stressful part of it," Monster Board co-chairman Porter Shults said.