It was a busy summer for the TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club grounds crew with two major tournaments rolling through the course during a two-week span this past July, but solid planning with early mornings and focused energy made everything run smoothly.
Bobby Currie, superintendent of TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club, said the main thing the grounds crew did differently from their usual routine to prepare the course for the July 20 to 21 PGA of Saskatchewan Championship and Saskatchewan Men's Amateur Championship July 27 to 30 was double cutting and rolling the greens every day as well as brush and verti-cut to speed them up. He said this is in contrast to their usual routine of doing this two to three times a week.
“Our labour on our greens pretty much doubles during these tournaments and the week leading up,” said Currie, noting they also change pin placements based on guidance from Sask Golf each day of a tournament. “The reason we don't do it everyday is it's too much wear and tear on the turf and it would cost us double on our budget. The other thing that we did different for these tournaments we had this year is we cut everything we could get to everyday with the exclusion of our rough. We cut an 11-foot pass along all of our fairways and then the rough outside of that was just left to grow for the duration of each tournament.”
Currie said the greens during the tournaments were too challenging for regular golfers who normally come to the course to play five to 10 rounds each summer. He said the work they put into them to make them faster made the ball turn more or break better and when the ball is hit above the hole it wouldn't be as easy to stop it, so these golfers had to make sure they hit their approach on the right portion of the greens to make putts.
“Other than that we'll go out and make sure everything is trimmed as far as our trees and everything ahead of time because normally we can go back out in the afternoon and we can work around golfers, but when they're playing we're kind of shut down,” he said. “We start earlier, so we can do everything in front of them.”
This meant the 15 member grounds crew began work as early as 3:40 a.m. on tournament days and that's only because it's too dark to go out any earlier. Currie said there usually isn't the whole crew working on a single day as well, but during the PGA of Saskatchewan and Men's Amateur championships everybody came in to work.
Nolan Rohatyn, a member of TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club who also played at the Saskatchewan Men's Amateur Championship, said the greens were in excellent condition during the tournament and also in the month surrounding it. He said the greens were fast and a few of the pins were tough, especially on the final day of the tournament, but they were also fair.
“That is what a lot of golfers like,” said Rohatyn. “Obviously, you don't want a pin right in the middle of a slope or anything ridiculous and they didn't do that, so that's good. They put some tough pins out there, but it was fair. It was a good challenge.”
Rohatyn said after the Amateur he also played the FrameTech Men's and Ladies' Classic Aug. 1 to 3 at Woodlawn, a tournament in Carnduff the weekend after, another stop at Kenosee Lake Golf Club after that and finally a tournament in Weyburn this past weekend. He said the greens at TS&M Woodlawn always seem to prove the best out of the different courses.
“They run smooth with good speed,” he said. “Overall course conditions all-in-all are in good shape. It's fun going down there to play.”
Currie said there are always tournaments occurring at TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club during the season, but the PGA and Amateur championships were a bit extra. He said these types of big events haven't happened in Estevan very often during his nine years working at the course, so a bit of planning was needed to get everything ready.
“It seems every five years or so we have a relatively big event and next year Estevan has the Summer Games and we have the golf event down here,” he said. “That will be similar again.”
Currie said work on preparing TS&M Woodlawn for the Estevan 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games has already begun. He said the grounds crew has already started their aeration program on the greens to make sure the plants are healthy heading into the winter and they plan to do the same with the fairways this fall.
“My average crew member, their task is to see what's going on today and do what we ask today,” said Currie. “I have a couple people, assistants, and their task is to see what we're doing today, but also look at what is coming next week and maybe the next two weeks. Then my job is to make sure everything is set up for next week, next month and next year. I'm looking into next year more now with the plain and simple fact (being) if I'm not ready for next year now we're going to run into problems.
“A lot of people think what you do today shows up today and that is a little bit of the truth, but as far as health of the plant it can be anywhere from a week to a month to a year where some of the things that we do show up.”
