DUBLIN, Ohio — It’s the 50th anniversary of the first Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin.

Golf legend and Ohio native Jack Nicklaus founded the tournament in 1976, and since then it has grown into one of the PGA Tour’s premier signature events.

You can find Dan Pierce high above the 18th green, working on one of the Memorial Tournament’s iconic hand-operated leaderboards.

He’s spent the last 10 years volunteering on the board, manually updating player scores throughout the week.

“Sometimes it’s a little bit of a rush when they tell you to change all the letters and numbers on the boards right away, but all in all it’s fun,” said Dan Pierce, a Memorial Tournament volunteer. 

It’s a fast-paced job, but one Pierce said helps preserve a tradition that has become part of the tournament’s identity.

“I think it adds a little traditional flair for golf to the game. Something that most tournaments don’t do anymore,” Pierce said. 

While tournament officials are keeping all 15 of their manually operated leaderboards in place, they’re also introducing something new this year.

A large digital scoreboard now sits near the northwest corner of the lake between the 10th tee and fairway, giving fans another way to follow the action and tournament information in real time.

For spectators like Todd Heckman, it’s a sign of the game evolving with a new generation of fans.

“I think just the growing of the game, the generations, some people were brought up on traditional scoreboards and scorecards and this younger generation with digital and the technology and its bridging the gap between the two and is growing the game of golf,” said Todd Heckman, a Memorial Tournament spectator. 

Back at the 18th green, Pierce said he and his fellow volunteers are eager to see how fans respond to the new addition.

“A digital scoreboard has a lot of advantages. Obviously, it can update instantly with pictures and things like that. It’s a totally different animal from what we do up here,” Pierce said. 

But whether fans are checking scores on a digital screen or a hand-operated board, many said what keeps bringing people back is the tournament’s rich history and connection to some of golf’s biggest names.

“I think just the history here. The fact that jack is from Columbus and his impact on the game, Tiger had a lot of good moments here, Scottie Scheffler, Rory, the new age of players,” Heckman said.