Continuous motion

Approaches meld fairways into greens. For Kyle Hillegass, they symbolize golf in motion and remarkable progress at Knickerbocker Country Club.

Walking the northern New Jersey grounds in mid-August, Hillegass temporarily halts his morning motion. Pausing doesn’t come naturally for Knickerbocker’s superintendent. Hillegass completed the New York City, Philadelphia and Rehoboth Beach marathons in a five-week stretch following the peak 2019 golf season. A year later, he pursued a bigger challenge, accepting the top turf job at Knickerbocker, a lasting club with a course losing its Golden Age luster.

But sometimes pausing leads to reflecting. So, as he nears the 17th green, Hillegass stops and watches a duo hand mow a steeply slanted approach with Toro Greensmaster 1000 units. Hillegass then walks to the raised green — the par 3 is a “volcano” hole originally designed by Donald Ross — and points to the southeast. Haze obstructs what Hillegass mentions: the New York City skyline can be spotted from the green.

Later in the day, Hillegass returns to the hole with senior assistant superintendent Brian Rykaczewski and equipment manager Jason Tangney. It’s less hazy and glimpses of opulent Manhattan towers emerge. The view didn’t exist in 2020, because trees cluttered an interior section of the course between the seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th holes. The majority of those trees have been selectively cleared over the past four years. “When you can deliver on a plan,” Hillegass says, “it starts to sell itself more and more.”

The current plan at Knickerbocker, a 110-year-old club just 10 miles from midtown Manhattan, involves melding a fascinating Golden Age heritage with modern playability and agronomic demands. Knickerbocker boasts a course with holes designed by Ross and contemporary Herbert Strong, whose respective portfolios include layouts responsible for hosting some of golf’s grandest events.

Ross’s and Strong’s layouts promote the imaginative ground game, and Hillegass proved to be the ideal superintendent to reintroduce approaches and motion to Knickerbocker.

A native of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, a small town 75 miles from Philadelphia and 110 miles from New York City, Hillegass grew up relishing history. Kutztown rests between Valley Forge and Gettysburg, a pair of military sites Hillegass frequently visited as a child. As an adult, Hillegass frequently studies the yellowing course routings, aerials and club literature stored in his office blueprint file cabinet. He’s even dabbled in studying the history of the physical structures, including the “Golf House” style pro shop, on and surrounding the Knickerbocker grounds.

“Being in this area, the amount of history that has happened here, if you embrace it, it tells a really important story of why what’s here is here,” Hillegass says. “It’s special for the club, and it helps with the master plan and getting people to understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

Studying history, though, can only take an individual or property to a certain level. At some point the interpretation must be acted upon. Hillegass started learning what faster and firmer surfaces can do for member enjoyment while working for industry legend Dick Bator at The International Golf Club in Bolton, Massachusetts. Hillegass affectionately refers to the experience as “Bator bootcamp,” and those two intense seasons in Massachusetts shape decisions he makes at Knickerbocker.

“I’m a strong, driven person, and I went to work for strong, driven people,” he says. “I got thrown into it right after college with Dick Bator. It was a survive or not survive mentality. The best thing I learned from him, by far, was his watering practices. He was a leader in the industry at the time of faster, firmer surfaces.”

Following his stint at The International, Hillegass worked for Michael Scott at Wykagyl Country Club in Westchester County, New York. He then joined David Delsandro’s team at Nassau Country Club on Long Island. Hillegass received his first head superintendent job at Edgewood (New Jersey) Country Club. He brought several key members of his Edgewood team, including Rykaczewski, to Knickerbocker, where they swiftly implemented what Hillegass labels a “bullseye” philosophy of working from the greens outward to reenergize the playing experience.

“The greens are always the most important thing to any golf course,” Hillegass says. “Every member putts on the green, but every member doesn’t use that part of the fairway or play on that tee box. Sticking to that was super important the first year. As greens got healthier and fairways got healthier, we could start to move outward from that and work on more of the detail work, the edges, the head edging, bunker depth. … That type of stuff starts to take care of itself as you develop momentum.”

Hillegass works collaboratively with architect Jaeger Kovich on implementing elements of a master plan. Striking changes abound while walking the portion of Knickerbocker’s 180-acre property supporting the 18-hole course, a practice putting green, the Golf House, gravel parking lot and club lawn. The clubhouse, practice range and short-game area, paved parking lot and tennis courts are on the east side of Knickerbocker Road.

Standing on the perched fifth green and staring north offers the first glorious glimpse of the daring incline on the left side of the Strong-designed sixth green, a par-3 Hillegass calls the “catcher’s mitt.” Removing trees near the green and adding fescue around the tee boxes make the epic green visible from multiple spots. Revealing the sixth green injected personality and strategy into the front nine, and further demonstrated Knickerbocker’s potential greatness. “When we cleaned those trees out on the left of six, as they were down, that gust of wind … it was like a new start,” Rykaczewski says.

The walk up the seventh is equally memorable as it presents views of expansive fescue fields on the right where deep pockets of trees once resided. The green features a left false front flowing into a tightly mowed approach.

Knickerbocker’s playing footprint has expanded to 30 acres of fairways and six acres of greens and approaches, all intended to keep balls in motion. Adding more short-cut turf under and around fewer trees enthralls golfers standing on the 14th tee. Tree clearing yielded a cape-like tee shot, tempting golfers to take on the heavily bunkered left side instead of playing to the spacious right fairway. The second shot is flat, with a bouncy approach flowing into a Strong-designed green inside a restored horseshoe-shaped bunker featuring an interior grass mound.

“We have made changes to every surface, the way they are managed, mowing practices, mowing lines, to the types of equipment we are using, to aeration practices, to getting base saturations, to the chemicals applied. … It’s all been a massive change,” Hillegass says. “Fourteen used to be in shade for probably a third to half the day. We opened that up, which allowed us to have healthier turf and lower the mowing heights to get our faster and firmer surfaces.”

Maintaining Knickerbocker’s green complexes to play as intended requires nimble maneuvers executed by talented operators using advanced equipment. In addition to handling approaches with Greensmaster 1000s, the Ross- and Strong-designed greens are walk-mowed with Toro Greensmaster Flex 2120s. Mowers that can deftly handle slopes, undulations and knobs, on and around greens, allow Hillegass’s team to preserve features and playing options they worked diligently to reintroduce.

“Using flex mowers on the super steep Ross and Strong features really helps turf health,” he says. “We’re hand mowing with 1000s on the approaches, which wasn’t being done before. There was no real set definition of fairway to approach. There was a collar and a fairway, and there wasn’t good tie-ins of mowing practices. Getting the right mowers on the proper surfaces was instrumental.”

Like many enduring Golden Age layouts, steep terrain dots the Knickerbocker landscape, making rough mower selection another important decision. Hillegass uses the Toro Groundsmaster Sidewinder 3500-D and Toro Groundsmaster 4300 on severe landforms. “Getting some newer rough mowers that can handle these undulations and slopes was super important,” Hillegass adds.

The need for precision extends to the spray program, and convinced Hillegass to incorporate a technology neither Ross nor Strong envisioned being used on holes they designed: a GPS sprayer. Using the Toro Multi Pro 1750 with GeoLink Technology on and around greens, including on turf-type tall fescue bunker surrounds, represents Hillegass’s and Rykaczewski’s first foray into GPS spraying.

Hillegass started pursuing a GPS sprayer after observing how it helped elevate a pair of prominent nearby New Jersey clubs. He then arranged a demo at Knickerbocker with Storr Tractor commercial customer support manager Andy Berenty. Improving subsurfaces instilled confidence that a riding sprayer could be used on greens in place of a walk-behind sprayer.

“I think the GPS technology has taken the place of it,” Hillegass says. “Labor is never going to get any cheaper, it’s only going to get more expensive. It saves a body GPS spraying with a 1750 that I can allocate to something else. The technology now has gotten so good. And we have really gotten the thatch out of our greens. We don’t see any tire tracking whatsoever.”

The tweaking at Knickerbocker will likely never stall as long as Hillegass, Rykaczewski and Tangney are leading the grounds department. Rykaczewski started his carer in golf, went to work for the New York Mets and returned to golf because baseball proved too repetitive. Tangney worked nearly three decades as an automotive and industrial mechanic before shifting to golf in 2021 after a mutual acquaintance introduced him to Hillegass.

“The expectation level is high,” Tangney says. “I was not aware of the precision that goes into sharpening, setting heights and how many different machines they have. It’s a lot. You work very hard here, but what I like is you see it immediately out there. With other jobs, you do a bunch of work, and you don’t see the outcome.”

Intensity permeates at a New York metropolitan area private club like Knickerbocker — Tangney says as many as 18 mowers can be deployed in one morning — and executing parts of the master plan limit extended winter respites. But standing on a firmer green with exact mowing lines no longer suffocated by trees and observing sweeping sights of motion on a course routed by two brilliant Golden Age architects inspires motivated professionals to reveal even more hidden greatness to supportive members.

“I remember the first walk around with Kyle when he wanted me to see this place,” Rykaczewski says. “I was thinking: When do you shut down nine holes and start over?” That’s how far it has come. I wouldn’t have thought it could happen this fast when we started here.”