Golf Business Canada 40 Golf Business Canada 41

Matt BlackburnMatt is the Superintendent at The Lakes Golf Club in Ben Eoin, Nova Scotia, which played host to the

PGA Tour Canada’s Cape Breton Celtic Classic. Contact Matt at matt-blackburn@hotmail.com

or 902-828-4653.

The tournament schedule consists of a Ladies Pro-Am on Monday (dubbed the ProGlam) and a Men’s Pro-Am double shotgun on the Tuesday. The practice round is Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are rounds one and two in the format of double crossovers. The cut is made after Friday’s round. Saturday and Sunday are straight times.

Post-tournament recovery is an issue that anyone who hosts a major event has to deal with, however it is not often talked about. I have read many articles about tournament preparation and hosting big events, but recovery is not generally included. In order to discuss recovery, it is necessary to review what brought on the need for the recovery.

When I was notified by the club that we would be hosting a major event and I received the course conditioning guidelines from the PGA Tour of America, it all seemed a bit overwhelming. We are a crew of 10, which includes my assistant, my mechanic and me; hardly what I pictured for staff at regular tour stops like Bay Hill!

Handling a Major Tournament Hangover

For the past two years, The Lakes Golf Club has hosted PGA Tour Canada in an event called the Cape Breton Celtic Classic. The event is held the first week of September. PGA Tour Canada is a tour that feeds the Web.com Tour by offering its top-five money earners spots on the Web.com Tour.

After the players have moved on and the spectators have gone home, it’s time to deal with the aftermath of

a large event

I did what any member of our association would do when we have a problem or need information: I looked to my peers. During the winter that I was notified of the event, the Canadian International Turfgrass Conference and Tradeshow was in Toronto. Brian Youell was accepting the award for Superintendent of the Year. In his bio, it was mentioned that he had hosted a major event for several years. I introduced myself to Brian and asked him if he minded sharing some information about course preparation and what to expect for the week of the event. His response was true to the nature of our association as he took the time to discuss it and answered all my questions. We exchanged emails and he said he would forward all his tournament notes to help me plan my week. I can’t thank him enough for his generosity, especially considering I had never met him before!

There was a lot of support from the agronomy department of the PGA Tour. We had a lengthy phone call during the winter prior to the event that lasted the better part of a morning. We discussed

the club’s resources and what we would do to prepare the golf course during tournament week. The next winter, we discussed the previous year’s tournament and also made changes to improve the next year’s event. The agronomists are very understanding of budget constraints and help to think of solutions that fit your unique situation and solve challenges.

At our club, members and guests are permitted to tee off right up until 2:00 pm on the Sunday prior to the start of tournament week. It is a challenge to prepare the course while receiving heavy member and green fee traffic leading into the event. The heavy traffic, combined with the heat stress, is a challenge, especially when we are striving to achieve the desired speed, firmness and moisture content on greens.

It is important to pay attention to thatch levels on back tee decks. Quite often, these tees look great, but because of lack of use they can be puffy, making it undesirable for the tour players. Tournament week is beneficial for the other tee decks. Other than the two Pro-Ams, they get some time to fill in and recover from the heavy summer traffic. All fairway divots are filled during advance week (the week before the

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It is then allowed to grow right through tournament week and, depending on growing conditions, usually reaches 4-5” by the final round. Following the tournament’s end, we mow it at 3” Tuesday and cut it again on Thursday at 2 ½”. The following Tuesday, it is cut at 1 ¾”, which is our normal height-of-cut. During the reduction in height, we will disperse any clippings with our tow-behind blower. Our Club Championship is the weekend following the event; therefore it is very important to return the rough to a condition that is fair and playable for our members.

There is a large amount of infrastructure that needs to be taken down post-tournament. The municipality donates the fencing, staging, barbeques, tables and chairs, but we like to remove these items from the golf course ourselves so that the course is not damaged. We also have to remove the numerous portable toilets that were placed around the property to accommodate players and spectators. The volunteers and the Tour look after all the roping at green and tee sites.

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“The Tour wants a naked golf course for the pros. This is a great opportunity for photos because the golf course looks incredibly clean and photographs extremely well.“

A very time-consuming issue is the on-course accessories. My wife Stacey and two kids, Addison and Paxton, come out on Sunday afternoon before the event begins to help remove all the accessories and to spend some time with Dad before he disappears for a week! We remove all tee blocks, ball washers, yardage poles, divot boxes and all directional signage for carts. You forget how much is out there until it’s all in a pile in front of the shop! I took a picture to show the Greens Committee how much there is to move every day doing golf service and mowing. The Tour wants a naked golf course for the pros. This is a great opportunity for photos because the golf course looks incredibly clean and photographs extremely well. Sunday night is also a great time to apply one last spray application to the greens because the ropes go up on Monday at all green and tee sites which makes it extremely difficult to manoeuvre when spraying.

Following the event, greens are rolled for a few days with no vibration to reduce stress. A fungicide is applied the week following to keep the turf strong heading into fall and ensure it’s not using energy to fight off disease rather than using it for recovery after a week of increased stress.

Any hotspots on greens are needle tined and brought back to more favourable moisture levels rather than pushing them right to the edge. As previously mentioned, the Club Championship is the weekend following the event and I begin all my final granular fertilizer applications on greens, tees, fairways and rough on the Monday (Sept. 15) following the Club Championship.

By this time, accessories have slowly made their way back out on the course and things are getting back to normal. However, the workload keeps right on going as we head into aeration season.

What does an event like this mean to the maintenance staff? With the same staff as last year, it meant they knew what to expect. They knew what the potential of our golf course was when we were able to dial it up and really show what we can do. It put the staff, who are in at zero-dark-thirty everyday and often never seen by golfers, in the spotlight. Yes, everyone is there to watch the golfers, but they are watching them play on the product we produce. The pro golfers took the time to come over to the maintenance building to commend our staff for their efforts and then asked where the rest of our staff was! That type of recognition is pretty great and rewarding for the crew. It’s a long week, but we wouldn’t trade it for any other. I always tell my staff (most of whom don’t golf) just go to the range and watch them hit some drivers; it’s pretty incredible!

Article first appeared in the January / February 2015 edition of GreenMaster. Reprint permission granted by the CGSA.

tournament) and then finished off Sunday night before tournament week begins. During tournament week, fairways are checked daily and any divots are filled.

Our course receives a lot of cart traffic and tournament week is a great relief of this stress. Carts are used Monday and Tuesday for the Pro-Ams, but after that there are only rules officials travelling on the course. The volunteers are shuttled around on carts, but they are required to travel on the cart paths.

Regular tee times resume for members and guests at 7:00 am on the Monday morning following the tournament. I always give my staff Monday off on the week following the tournament. They have had a long week as well and work an average of over seventy hours during the tournament. We do pick up four volunteers for the week; my dad, my step-dad, my uncle and a supplier friend of mine.

Our biggest issue around tournament recovery, and one that is most obvious to membership, is the rough. The rough is mowed at 3” on Wednesday of advance week.

Golf Business Canada

“Our biggest issue around

tournament recovery, and

one that is most obvious to membership, is

the rough.”