LT Classic Tournament

This past weekend we hosted a three day tournament, The Land Title Classic.  I first have to say thank you and congratulations to the amazing job that our maintenance staff did.  If it wasn't for them we would of not been able to deliver the great golf course that we did.

A lot of things fell into place agronomically and we were able to produce a very high level of playing conditions with greens that were rolling around 13 ft all 3 days.  Mother nature helped us out with a little cooler weather and 0.4" of rain on Wednesday before the tournament.  Always a superintendents dream!  We were able to turn off irrigation as of last Tuesday and only handwater areas that really needed it for 6 straight days, greens were topdressed 5 days before the tournament, which always seems to be produce the smoothest and best putting greens.  Fertilizer was running out on the greens keeping them very lien, and like usual the height of cut was way down there.  All spring we have been gradually lowering the height of cut on tees, fairways and approaches, forcing them to increase density and allowing the ball to sit up on top of the turf canopy.  The week prior led to an extensive amount of detail work, course prep, and tournament set-up.  Then over the weekend the staff worked from 5 AM to about 9 AM each morning with mowing approaches, greens, rolling greens, raking bunkers, and several aspects of course set-up each morning.  Followed by an evening shift from 4 PM to dark consisting of mowing tees, approaches, rough, filling divots, and handwatering.  The staff really worked hard and took pride in the product they were able to deliver for the event and the pristine playing conditions they produced.

The comments from all out of town players was great to hear.  They couldn't believe the speed of the greens, the smoothness, and the trueness. It is a great feeling when you plan out all your agronomic strategies and work backwards from the event and then things fall into place.  There are so many factors that influence the putting quality of a green, like the height of cut, fertility level, moisture content, sand topdressing, grooming, and rolling.  Getting all of these factors to come out just right is such a good feeling to produce the playing conditions that we did.

Hole #4 

Hole #10

 Hole #11

 Hole #14

Hole #13 

Hole #17