Aiken businesses, residents get ready for golf week events

AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Aiken officials says golf week is one of their busiest weeks of the year, and preparations start as early as December.

Making sure restaurants, businesses, and even the landscaping is up to par — now, on the tee is the City of Aiken.

“Everything pretty much fills up around here,” says Eric Gordon, the City of Aiken Tourism Manager. “Our city slogan for tourism is you’re invited, and so we really make it that everyone is invited to come to Aiken for Masters.”

As golf rolls in, Aiken transforms.

“During the day, we have all our regular museums and art centers open and whatnot,” Gordan explains. “But then in the evenings, we have live music in our alley every night, Monday through Friday. Then we are also kicking off our Hopelands concert series, which is a free concert in Hopelands Gardens.”

Events fill the streets.

“On Tuesday, we have our largest event which is called the Aiken Art Walk,” Gordan says. “We have artists set. We have vendors set up there. All the restaurants are open, the stores are open late. Our airport gets packed. We never see this many planes, but everyone walking off is so excited to be here.”

Everything from the environment to the scenery changes.

“We try to get the parkways cleaned up. We maintain our annual flower beds, the downtown fountains,” the City of Aiken’s arborist and horticulturist, Aaron Campbell says. “We have done a lot of extensive repairs in the parkways due to Hurricane Helene. We’ve come a long way. Since that storm and we have Aiken looking pretty well downtown for the Masters.”

For True Aiken, this is their first time being open during the tournament.

The owner of True Aiken, Sarah Dodge, explains, “We had been open for about 10 weeks and we had a fire. So unfortunately, we missed Masters week and so we were really bummed obviously to miss out on that opportunity.”

But this year they’re back — and for them the preparation has already started.

“We have a lot of fun Masters themed T-shirts and things like that,” says Dodge. “We’re going to stay open late each night. We’re certainly going to be open during art walk. So, we’re really looking forward to meeting everybody and welcoming everybody.

And True Aiken hoping to do it all again next year.

“I think it’s a great way to bring new customers to the store. I’m really looking forward to meeting people that hopefully will come back and visit us next time they come to Aiken as well.”

Other events coming to Aiken during golf week are:

• April 7, 2025: The Lady & The Gents at 6:30 p.m.
• April 8, 2025: Art Walk in Downtown Aiken, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.
• April 10 - 12: Trolley tours, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.

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