We began prepping for the tourament last week on Friday by topdressing the greens, one week before the first day of the tournament. This would ensure that they were firm and true with a nice layer of sand just beneath the turf surface.
On Monday the week of the tournament we applied our first foliar application to the fairways. A tank mixture of Civitas for some disease control (and greening), a controlled realease nitrogen fertilizer to ensure continued turf health and vigor, an Iron product that helps produce extra chlorophyll in the plant and thus additional greening, and lastly a healthy dose of a growth regulator that will not only keep the fairways from growing vertically (meaning we reduce our mowings) but also helps the turf increase its density to help recover from divots quicker. This was the first of four total fairway spray applications we will do this summer. On Tuesday the tees were also sprayed, and on Thursday the greens and approaches were sprayed.
All of the bunkers were trimmed and edged over the course of the first 3 days of the week also. This was already our second bunker edging of the year, and definitely went a lot faster this time as they were already quite a bit cleaner than when they were first done this spring.
All of the rough on the course was mowed on Monday and Tuesday, and then remowed on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday just around the green and tee banks and along the edges of the fairways.
Lastly, over the course of the week we did a very extensive trimming job around every tree, sign, bush and obstacle on the property. I am not sure of the exact number, but it is quite a large task when you think about trimming around well more than 1,000 objects in just a couple of days.
The only part that didn't really cooperate in our tournament preperation was the weather. We received just over 1" of rain on Wednesday and Thursday, so unfortunately the greens were pretty soft for the tournament and we weren't quite able to get the speeds out of them that I was hoping for. It is hard to complain though because we still are in need of some good moisture after the dry and hot spring we started with in May.
The culmination of all this work is the actual tournament on Friday and Saturday, but by that point in the week all of our preperation work had been done, and we are simply left with getting the course mowed and set up in the mornings.
On Friday and Saturday the staff started at 5:00am to get a jump out on the course before the shotgun went off at 8:30 and 9:00. I hope everyone appreciates how much time and work the staff put into preparing and setting up the course for the tournament, I know I do! Thanks guys!
The following is a quick summary of shots of all the staff doing thier jobs on Friday morning before the shotgun. Getting up at the crack of dawn 6 or 7 days a week definitely starts to wear on all of us. However, getting to watch the sun come up over such a beautiful piece of property is a great way to put an end to a long week...
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