At the 2010 PGA at Whistling Straits
Open in July, the week before the British Open.
Loch Lomond Golf Club is in a truly spectacular location, with views of Ben Lomond from the loch shore. The climate in the west of Scotland is totally opposite to Florida, significantly cool, moist and very inconsistent. The average rainfall is approx 2000mm per year. This means that the drainage system has to be very advanced in order to cope. Originally, when the course was built, a
lot of road spoil was used to construct the fairways and surrounds. A small amount of drainage was installed, but not enough to deal with heavy rainfall - especially when the course was hosting a tournament. In order to improve the course’s condition, the club purchased drainage equipment including a Fendt Tractor, Shelton Wizzwheel, a sand hopper and, most importantly, pipe, sand and gravel. Project work included sand scraping the worst areas (hard rock). One of the biggest areas was the second leg of the tenth fairway.
The turf cultivars at Loch Lomond consist of brown top bent and Poa annua blend greens, bentgrass tees and fairways and perennial ryegrass rough. May, June and July were the busiest months on the golf course - preparing for the Barclays Scottish Open. My main responsibility for the tournament was mowing the greens (using a John Deere 180C greensmower). This was my first experience of greens mowing in a professional tournament, so preparation
“It had to be so perfect that the PGA insisted I lay all of my hole changing tools out on a towel first, just in case I appeared on television!”
was essential. The week before the tournament was really full on - getting the greens up to speed with double cutting and rolling. We recorded our clipping yield, which gave us a great idea of growth rate, and predicted whether we needed to perform another cut or roll. As requested by the European Tour management, the greens had be running around 10 to 10.5 on the stimp. Thankfully, the weather, during the 2009 Open week was, to say the least, perfect. A moment I will never forget was when the crew headed over to the back of the 18th on Sunday evening to watch the final groups come through. We then, following tradition, had a photo with the winner. The next step for me - Australia! I had been planning this throughout the summer in Scotland, hoping, one day, to work at the Australian Open. Once again, I was lucky enough to gain a working holiday visa, and was offered a position by the New South Wales Golf Club. This is a links style golf course in La Perouse, south Sydney, dating back to the early 1920s and designed by Alistair McKenzie. I worked under the Course Superintendent, Gary Dempsey. This was the first time the course had hosted the Australian Open and, so, was a new experience for everyone. The course had gone through some serious renovation programmes over the previous years, redeveloping the bunkers to a revetted style and changing the layout of the 18th fairway and green. The greens at New South are a
creeping bent and poa annua blend. Tees, fairways and rough are largely couch grass (Bermuda) with a percentage of Kikuyu in the rough. The particularly cool spring in Sydney resulted in the couch grass fairways taking longer than expected to come out of winter dormancy. Fertiliser rates were increased on all playing surfaces to tighten up areas.
Again, as at the Scottish Open, I cut
the greens for the tournament (using Toro Flex 18’’ greensmower). All was going well, until a 75km south easterly wind blew up on the Friday morning. This caused havoc on the coastal 6th and 13th greens. The pros couldn’t hold their putts, as the balls were blowing off the greens! Although the greens preparation had been authorised by Golf Australia, Stuart Appleby certainly didn’t approve - blaming the greens staff for the uncontrollable mess, despite being six under and leading the tournament at the time. Adam Scott eventually won the tournament at 15 under par. Steve Mallyon (Assistant at Roseville Golf Club, Sydney) was one of the volunteers I met during the Aussie Open. He and I worked closely alongside each other, and are now good friends. After my six months at NSW Golf Club, I once again headed back to Scotland and Loch Lomond for another season. Steve came over and volunteered for two weeks at the Barclays Scottish Open, and then moved to St Andrews to experience the British Open.
Loch Lomond is a truly stunning venue
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