Whing Ding Tourney

Over Labor Day Weekend we hosted our annual Whing Ding Tournament and over the last two weeks staff has been very busy prepping the golf course for the event.  This is our most competitive tournament each year, the highest demand is placed on turf conditioning, and we push the turf as far as we can and keep it right on the edge for 4 days.  Friday is practice rounds, Saturday and Sunday is individual play where the top ten individuals qualify for a sole survivor competition on Monday.  All 10 players start on #1, they play a variation of 9 holes, and each hole the highest score is dropped and in the event of a tie then a chip off determines who is eliminated. This years field saw one of the best handicaps in history.  The championship flight was cut off with a +1 handicap, the best was a +5 handicap by Tyler Carlson an Oregon State Sophomore, and 18 players had a + handicap.  The cut for the two day score to make the sole survivor was 143, and the leader after two days was Aaron Cockerill a senior at the University of Idaho at 12 under, shooting a 65 and 67.  

Hole #17 of the Sole Survivor

The sole survivor is a very fun event to watch supported by about 300 spectators watching the 10 best  trying to navigate the greens that are stimping 14 1/2.  It involved a couple grip clenching chip offs with te most notable being a chip off between 4 players on #15 as they all pared the par 4 except 1 golfer birdied it. The winner was Jared du Toit, a freshman at the University of Idaho from BC Canada, by sinking his 8 ft eagle putt on the par 5 512 yard 18th hole.

Over the 4 days, greens were mowed 6 times, rolled 7 times, and approximately 140 labor hours were put into the greens alone.  Fertilizer was backed off weeks prior to the event, water was turned down days before the event and then turned off other than hoses for 3 days, and the turf was pushed as far as we could push it.  Water management involved allowing all areas of the golf to dry out and only hand watering the turf under the most stress and giving only enough moisture to make it through the day.  Staff worked in the morning to prep and set-up the golf course each day and then came back in the evening to mow all areas that were not mowed in the morning and perform all the handwaterng that was needed.  As much as the staff and myself enjoy to produce pristine conditions like this it is not something that the turf could hold up to on a regular basis.  

Rolling greens

Handwatering only with selected irrigation heads for 3 days

A dry green after a syringe of water - difference in color on the back and right side

It was a pleasure to have last years Sole survivor champion, a native to Moscow ID, a recent University of Washington graduate, the #1 amateur golfer in the world last year, and turned professional this year.  He had a free weekend and came down to caddy for his good friend Jason Huff who made it to the Sole Survior.

My wife Misty (left) and myself (right) with last years winner, now professional - Chris Williams (middle)

The long weekend would of not been complete without an irrigation break leading up to the tournament, so we did take time out of our busy week to repair a hair line crack in a 6" mainline on #18.

Water spraying out of a crack