If there’s a logical choice to head the 200 volunteers for the merchandise pavilion at the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open here, it’s Jay Filling.

He’s got decades of experience as a retailer, being co-owner of the Filling’s Clothing store in Lancaster with his wife Mary Beth.

He’s also got decades of experience as a golfer, having played at Hempfield High School and UNC-Greensboro, then competed as an adult.

RELATED: 2015 U.S. Women’s Open in Lancaster will add top-shelf store to top-shelf golf

“I was happy to be asked,” said Filling, noting that his wife will be contributing as much time and expertise to the effort as he.

“She’s going to be as big a part of it as I am. She’ll be a huge asset to everyone involved,” he said.

The Open will be July 6-12 at  the Lancaster Country Club.

Filling is not a member there — he’s a member at Bent Creek — but has many friends at the New Holland Pike club.

As chairman of the committee overseeing the merchandise pavilion volunteers, Filling said the main challenge will be scheduling them.

Filling, a third-generation retailer, and Mary Beth will lean on the Filling’s staff for help in “putting this jigsaw puzzle together.”

“This is running a retail store, except it’s a big one. It will take a lot of communication and cooperation,” he said.

“Luckily, we have computers and spreadsheets.”

Filling pointed out that the pavilion, at 8,000 square feet, will have more than two times the sales area of his Harrisburg Pike store.

On the other hand, Filling and the volunteers won’t have to worry about some of the key duties involved in running a typical store.

For instance, purchasing inventory will not be their concern.

That’s being handled by Harlene Udovich, hired by the United States Golf Association as the event’s director of merchandise.

Filling downplayed his contribution to the Open, noting his committee is only one of many helping to organize the event’s volunteers.

Some 2,500 volunteers are needed.

He was optimistic that the Open would draw at least that number, saying the Open already was close to that target.

“There’s been a very substantial outpouring of support,” said Filling. “It’s remarkable. The county really is embracing this event.”

To volunteer, people can use the event’s website, 2015uswomensopen.com, and go to the “contact” tab.

They’ll need to pay a $135 fee.

In return, they get preferred parking, an official golf shirt, a windbreaker, a hat or visor, a water bottle, a commemorative pin, use of the volunteer tent, two passes to an appreciation party, entries to prize drawings and a weeklong access pass.

Sure, the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club will be a national, prestigious golf event.

But like any major national sporting championship, watching the athletic competition won’t be the only activity.

And befitting such a high-caliber tournament, those other pursuits will be high-end too.

There’ll be dining. And socializing. And shopping — definitely plenty of shopping.

Shopping, said Barry Deach, championship director for the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open, “is a big part of the championship experience for fans.”

RELATED: Lancaster retailer heads 200 merchandise volunteers for 2015 U.S. Women’s Open

For the event next July 6-12, the New Holland Pike club will have a merchandise pavilion in an 8,000-square-foot temporary structure.

The pavilion, said Harlene Udovich, director of merchandise for the event, will be a miniature, high-end department store.

Its ambiance will belie its temporary existence.

The pavilion will have carpeting, air conditioning and top-of-the-line fixtures, displaying a selection of about 200 items.

All will sport the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open logo.

Some items will be “co-branded” with the logo of United States Golf Association too; the USGA is the group that holds the U.S. Women’s Open.

Udovich is going to great lengths to have a diverse mix of merchandise in that pavilion.

“I’ll have something for everybody,” said Udovich.

She means that literally.

The pavilion will have merchandise not just for men, women and children, but for different ages of men, women and children.

Though the 14-year veteran of golf-event merchandising is in the early stage of selecting 2015 U.S. Women’s Open items, there are some staples.

Among these are polo shirts, T-shirts, glassware, pinflags, caps, visors,  golfballs, windbreakers, blankets, books and posters.

Customers will be able to get some apparel personalized with embroided names.

Many other decisions have yet to be made.

Some will hinge on what new products are shown by golf-event suppliers next January, at the industry’s main show in Orlando.

“I will look at different companies and the different lines they have to offer and bring in the most current merchandise that will be available at that time.

“So a lot of it will be product that the general public hasn’t seen yet,” said Udovich.

Factored into her decisions will be her research on successful retailing strategies — products, prices, colors, sizes etc. — in this market.

Deach is confident in Udovich’s ability to pick winners.

“Harlene has got wonderful taste,” he said.

A big part of Udovich’s job is to prepare for the unexpected.

She puts a priority on finding suppliers who can react to strong sales by replenishing inventories quickly.

It’s just hard to predict what those fast-selling items might be.

At the 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota, orange baseball caps “flew off the shelves,” said Deach.

Low temperatures and rain at the 2004 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Haven, Wisconsin, made sales of windbreakers and blankets surge.

At this year’s Women’s Open in Pinehurst, North Carolina, commemorative glassware was an unusually big seller.

“There’s always one or two surprises the week of a championship,” said Deach.

Sometimes purchases are practical, like buying a windbreaker on a chilly day.

But often the motivation is the memory associated with the merchandise, said Deach.

“It’s part of the commemoration. It’s a keepsake. It’s like saving the ticket from a favorite rock concert,” he said.

For some golf fans, a purchase at a major tournament sparks a long-term interest in acquiring such items as collectibles, observed Deach.

The vast majority of the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open merchandise that’s sold will be sold at the pavilion during the week of the tournament.

A small selection of the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open merchandise, all with the event logo, is available now at the Lancaster Country Club pro shop.

Items in stock include:

Baseball caps ($25), towels ($25 to $27), two-packs of tumblers ($36 to $45, depending on the size), two-packs of wineglasses ($40), two-packs of rocks glasses ($23), embroided pinflags ($30), golfballs ($25 a dozen), embroided leather  driver head covers ($65), men’s golf shirts ($50 to $75), women’s golf shirts ($50 to $55), ball markers ($8 to $10) and four-packs of stone coasters ($48, or $61 in a logoed, decorative wooden box).

The pro shop’s selection of 2015 U.S. Women’s Open merchandise will broaden in the months ahead.

A small selection also will be available on the USGA website, said Udovich.

Udovich declined to estimate how much merchandise might be sold at the week-long event next July, which is expected to draw up to 100,000 fans.

She would only say that she was optimistic sales would exceed the average for the Women’s Open, declining to share that average as well.

However, given that it will cost “tens of thousands of dollars” to ready the merchandise pavilion, according to Deach, the volume of sales must be a hefty figure.

To move that merchandise will require many hands. That’s where volunteers come in.

Some 200 are scheduled to work at the pavilion alone, among 2,500 needed to staff the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open.

The volunteers for the pavilion will be led by Jay Filling, co-owner of Filling’s Clothing in Lancaster and an avid golfer.

“They’re a huge portion of the merchandise operation. It doesn’t function without them. They play a very important role,” said Udovich.

“They’ll do everything from running a cash register to bagging merchandise to helping to fill the shelves.”

Udovich said it’s too early to know what kind of structure will house the merchandise pavilion.

In recent years, the Women’s Open merchandise pavilion has been a sleek, white fabric building with windows, a peaked roof and double-doors.

With a footprint of 8,000 square feet, the pavilion will be roughly comparable in size to the Gap or American Eagle stores at Park City Center.

Next to the pavilion will be a “check tent,” said Deach.

That’s a place of about 800 square feet where customers can leave their newly purchased merchandise for the rest of the day, then claim it when they leave.

Udovich, 39, of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, comes to her role for the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open thoroughly prepared after 14 years with the PGA in merchandise roles.

(Officially, that’s the Professional Golfers’ Association of America, which holds men’s professional tournaments.)

She left as merchandising manager, responsible for running all merchandise-related activities of the PGA’s major events, the same role she’s filling for the 2015 Open.

During those years she worked on three Ryder Cup competitions (which match an American team against an European team), 14 PGA championships and 10 Senior PGA championships.

“It’s given me the opportunity to have events all across the U.S. and get to know different markets and the demands of different markets,” said Udovich.

In addition, Udovich was in charge of the PGA’s corporate merchandise sales programs, national licensing programs, PGA Authentic brand management and PGA member merchandise programs.

PINEHURST, N.C. – Someday soon Dan Burton is a near-lock to be president of the United States Golf Association.

Which isn’t as big a deal, to Burton, as what he’s doing right now.

As First Vice-President of the U.S.G.A., Burton is chair of the Competition Committee, which means he’s Tournament Director of the U.S. Men’s and Women’s Opens, the Men’s and Women’s Amateur Championships, and the U.S. Senior Open.

“I was hoping for this,’’ Burton said Tuesday at the media center at Pinehurst Country Club.

“This is all I want to do, the most fun thing, the thing I’ve always wanted to do most. If I never get to do anything else in my career with U.S.G.A., I’m happy.’’

He’s happy running golf tournaments. He’s in charge of everything inside the ropes at Pinehurst for the Women’s Open this week, and the Men’s Open last week.

He’s also been a rules official, this week, and at the Masters and British Open, the Players’ Championship and the World Amateur Team Championship, which will be played this summer in Japan. He was the referee walking along with the second-last group (Erik Compton and Henrik Stenson) in Sunday final round.

He expects to have the same gigs when the Women’s Open comes to Lancaster next year.

“Obviously I’m excited about a national championship coming to the place I live, and a club I’m a member of,’’ he said. “I think the course is one the ladies will love to play, and they’ll love the way the community embraces them.’’

The U.S.G.A. is on a bit of a roll. Since current executive director Mike Davis began running Opens and setting up their venues in 2005, the organization has won praise throughout golf for a more reasoned, less severely penal approach.

Recently, there was the supposed gamble of holding the Men’s Open at Merion, in Ardmore, a supposed antiquated venue. That one worked, by all accounts.

This year’s experiment, holding the Men’s and Women’s Opens back-to-back at Pinehurst, on a course essentially without rough, is arguably riskier.

“If you’d have asked us a year ago, we’d have been not just happy, but ecstatic, to have to work this well,’’ Burton said. “We like to reward great shots. (Martin Kaymer, who won the Men’s Open) hit a lot of them.’’

The U.S.G.A.’s hierarchy is not unlike that of, for example, the PIAA. There’s a full-time staff, headed since 2011 by Davis. There’s an executive committee (think PIAA Board of Directors), headed by the President, followed by a First and Second VP.

Tom O’Toole was named president last year, meaning Burton rose from Second to First VP, and to the competition committee chair. At a press conference the other day, Davis referred to Burton as “the next president,’’ presumably for a two-year term that would begin in 2016.

He is a good player, although better before the U.S.G.A. began devouring his time. He won the Pennsylvania Golf Association Mid-Amateur in 1994.

It was his handling of a couple controversial incidents in his quarterfinal and semifinal matches (“I wanted to win with my clubs, rather than other stuff,’’ he said) at the Mid-Am that brought him to the attention of golf administrators. He started with the state association in ‘95, moved to the Golf Association of Philadelphia in ‘97, and to the U.S.G.A. in 2009.

His “real’’ job, as Managing Director of RBC Capital Markets, allows for the massive time commitment. When the Women’s Open ends Sunday, he’ll head to Washington, where he and Davis will walk Chambers Bay, the 2016 Men’s Open site.

Then he’ll be home for a few days before heading to the Senior Open at Oak Tree in Oklahoma, followed by the British Open, at Royal Liverpool in England.

Playing golf is for the winter, in Florida.

“I can’t believe I get to do this,’’ Burton said. “There’s nothing I’d rather do in golf, other than maybe if I was a good enough player to win one of those championships.’’