Improvements in Fairway Maintenance
Inside the Ropes at the U.S. Open
I thought I would share a little behind the scenes type of information with you as it pertains to getting arguably the best golf course in the world ready for championship golf.
The Wednesday before the start of the U.S. Open, I got to ride around the course with Jack Holt, Assistant Superintendent at Pebble Beach, to see how the course had been set up and maintained, for this important tournament.
Jack has been around Pebble Beach for 20 years and has seen it all. In his estimation, they were very comfortable with the conditions of the course prior to the event. In layman’s terms and in my opinion, it looked awesome.
According to Holt, getting ready for the 1982 U.S. Open was about the same as for preparing for the annual AT&T tournament. The 1992 U.S. Open was a little larger than an AT&T event. This year’s Open was in a class by itself. With 32,500 tickets sold each day, local officials estimated the actual crowd to be at 50,000 people a day by the weekend.
One of the biggest challenges Jack and the crew faced was the logistics of placing 60 corporate tents, 20 television towers, and 16 gallery grandstands that seated 20,000 spectators throughout the golf course. Additionally, the Peter Hay par three course was completely torn up for the 27,000 square foot retail tent and the feature area for the 100th Anniversary U.S. Open sculpture designed by Richard MacDonald.
Agronomically speaking, growing the grass was the easy part. With the U.S. Amateur held in August of 1999, Pebble’s crew had a practice run at getting the course championship ready. In fact, this has been the fifth big event held at Pebble Beach the past year and a half so the maintenance crew is tournament tough. The greens were double cut at 1/10 of an inch and rolled with a hydraulic roller each morning. After play was finished each day the greens were cut again. Watering the greens is of course a touchy subject. The crew only puts out what the USGA advises them to apply.
The USGA wanted green speeds at 10.5 on the Stimpmeter by the practice rounds and by Sunday afternoon they were rolling at 12. Fairways and tees were cut a shade higher than 3/8 of an inch. The fairways and tees were also mowed twice a day. Roughs were cut at the beginning of the week to four inches. By the end of the week the rough was five inches. Generally fairways are much wider for everyday play, but the crew narrowed the fairways at the request of the USGA on average by 5 yards. Some fairways lost up to 15 yards. The average width of the fairways for the U.S. Open was 28-32 yards.
The maintenance crew was on site at 4:30 AM every morning getting the course ready for play. Thursday and Friday were extremely long days for the crew, as they prepped the course for the early tee times which started at 6:30 AM and ran every ten minutes until 3:00 PM. The fog delays on Thursday evening and Friday morning meant that the crew would have to work even longer hours to get all the tasks completed. In fact, many members of the crew were on site for 19 hours a day during those two long days.
The crew, 30 members strong, also had the assistance of thirty golf course superintendents from throughout the country on hand to volunteer their services. These individuals bombed divots, fluffed up areas in the rough that have been compacted down by equipment, raked bunkers, as well as a variety of other last minute details.
Incidentally, the three NCGA interns, Brad Griffing, Brian McCrae, and Dan Gutierrez got to spend a week at Pebble Beach in early May to witness and participate in the preparatory work. The overwhelming sentiment from the interns was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Of course, the scenery wasn’t too shabby either.
Now that the Open is over and Tiger Woods is the reigning Open Champion, the course will slowly recover to it’s pristine pre-Open condition in a matter of 6 to 8 weeks. The severely worn rough areas will be aerated, fertilized, and reseeded. The rough in play, will gradually be mowed to its’ original height of two inches. Fairway boundaries will be moved back out to the normal dimensions. Greens will be raised back up to 1/7 of an inch and be aerified to help relieve the compaction caused by the excessive foot and equipment traffic.
Undoubtedly, the 100th U.S. Open was special. Hopefully, this article served as a little insight into what it takes to prepare for a U.S. Open. There is a so much work that takes place on the course prior to the first practice round that most people don’t realize. Whether it is rerouting cart paths, installing new bridges, renovating every bunker on the golf course, or constructing the new sea wall on 18, the crew at Pebble Beach truly put it’s best foot forward. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have the best player in the world play the best golf in the world on the best golf course in the world.
Don’t forget to repair ballmarks and replace and fill divots. This is one of the best ways for a golfer to make his or her course more playable and enjoyable.
