Golf
“
I felt that extra bit lucky to be on the back nine crew. I think it would have killed me had I not been able to stand on the majestic 17th every morning with the sun coming up
Part of the maintenance shed Mowing a green on the Dye Valley Course
The remaining volunteers attempted the famous 17th for a nearest the pin prize. Needless to say, I didn’t receive it!
” Rotary mowing rough around the 13th green 20 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015
more detailed work, as the course had been closed for two weeks beforehand to do a lot of the main tournament preparation. We broke for lunch around 1.00pm and then it was back out again until about 9.00pm that night. It was an amazing feeling getting on the bus that evening, knowing that I had just worked a full day at TPC Sawgrass. Monday morning was the same 4.00am pick up outside the dorms. Clay said his few words, got everyone buzzing and then it was start time. We were split into groups of front nine, back nine, practice facility and landscape. I felt that extra bit lucky to be on the back nine crew. I think it would have killed me had I not been able to stand on the majestic 17th every morning with the sun coming up. My duties on AM setup were backpack blowing tees, bunkers, greens and paths with three other guys. The back nine AM crew usually had two TPC staff transporting floodlights around for us to see, two staff taking data collection (moisture, stimp, firmness), four cutting greens, four moving boards for mowers to turn on, two on hole cutting, two rolling greens, two mowing tees,
four mowing fairways, one on a Buffalo blower and collecting mower clippings, one on the semi-rough, two hand mowing approaches, four on backpack blowing and fifteen on bunkers. The front nine crew did the same thing with the same number of people. I was travelling each morning with a South
African superintendent called Nikki. We got on really well and had a fantastic time. We usually finished up about 8.00am, and we would then fall back and give the bunker crew a hand to finish raking. We used double rakes on the bunkers which left a superb finish. It was usually around 9.00am when we
had breakfast, and then we had the option of going back to the dorms for some rest until the evening shift, or hanging around, heading to the beach or whatever we wanted. I volunteered on a couple of days at the Dye Valley course with two of the BIGGA lads as Lucas was looking for some help over there. We hand cut greens and tidied up bunkers. It was great to see the other course and it was absolutely beautiful. I nearly hand cut an alligator that was lying up just off the collar of one of the greens I was mowing!
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