Grinding through two on No.2

In the weeks after the first back-to-back men’s and women’s U.S. Opens at Pinehurst No. 2, certified golf course superintendent Kevin Robinson was dealing with a “letdown” in a “ghost town.” The throngs that lined the course for two weeks in June were gone as were the bleachers themselves. Most significantly, though, so were the bentgrass greens that defied the heat, the traffic and the doubters by providing supreme putting surfaces lauded by the men and women.

Exactly one month after the final putt, Robinson watched as mowers made their first run over Champion Bermudagrass on No. 2. In between, he had “three days at the beach with the kids.” It wasn’t much of a break for a man who’d averaged about four hours sleep a night for two weeks with the weight of an historic first on his shoulders. But after spending so long preparing and then delivering on the promise of the dual Opens, Robinson was grateful for something new to dig his teeth into.

“It’s been kind of like a ghost town here without No. 2 being open,” he says. “There’s definitely been a letdown. I mean, we were looking forward to the Opens for years, gearing up the whole time. Then it’s over. Thankfully, the greens conversion is keeping us occupied.”

Labor Day, when No. 2 reopens, is the next milestone. Here, with snippets from his own daily diary presented by GCI and the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association, is a glimpse of the grind that Robinson and his team put in to pull off the most ambitious feat in the history of America’s national championships.
 

Sunday, June 8

Right now I’ve just had a shower and lay down on the bed. It feels like the first time I’ve drawn breath all day. I’m watching LeBron James knock down a couple of shots late in the third quarter against the Spurs. I doubt I will see many more, though. I’m ready for sleep.

It’s also the first time I’ve had a chance today to stop and think about what we’re about to do here with the back-to-back Opens. Man, it’s a rush. There’s just no time during the day. We’re so busy the time just flies by.

We are set up really well for what’s ahead, barring any weather catastrophes of course. The greens are so healthy right now. The next two weeks are pretty huge. I know I’m feeling some — butterflies that is - but what a cool feeling to have.
 

Monday, June 9

Today was a practice round for us too and we learned a lot. There were some kinks to iron out, but I guess you’re gonna get that when you’re trying to mow greens in the dark.

One thing we didn’t anticipate was the logjam that the security checks caused. This was the first day they’ve had security in place and there was just one guy scanning badges as we crossed the road from the maintenance facility to the golf course. That doesn’t work real well when you’ve got close to 100 people and machinery revved up and ready to get started.

The atmosphere amongst everyone on the crew this week is tremendous. It got even better today when my mom and my youngest daughter, Grace (11), brought the crew a big batch of chocolate chip cookies.
 

Tuesday, June 10

The bunkers are a talking point, for sure, with plenty of questions about where the waste areas end and the bunkers begin. We’ve been working with the USGA on how we rake them. The good thing is that all the bunkers are inside the ropes unlike Whistling Straits, where Dustin Johnson got into trouble. Honestly, I think come Thursday it will be a non-issue.

The weather is not looking ideal, with a 60 percent chance of rain tomorrow and more temperatures in the 90s. But the forecast has been changing so much you can’t be sure. We might give the greens a little drink in the morning just in case it doesn’t rain. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. This is a two-week “tournament” after all.
 

Wednesday, June 11

The winds peaked at 34 mph. There was pine straw everywhere, tees, greens, surrounds. We had every backpack blower, tractor blower and Groundsmaster blower out there that we have. And it seemed like it was in no time that we had everything back as if nothing had happened.

Don’t try this at home without thought Golf course superintendents and operators enamored by the 2014 U.S. Open might want to temper their enthusiasm before turning off irrigation heads and halting fertilizer and pesticide purchases. Tim Moraghan, a former Pinehurst superintendent and principal of ASPIRE Golf, admires the look of Pinehurst No. 2 and the decision to emulate the course’s original design. But he says your course might not be ready to follow the hard, brown message the USGA sent via Pinehurst. Moraghan helped prepare championship courses for the USGA from 1986 to 2006. “Any superintendent that wants to proceed down this path I congratulate them, but make sure your members are educated on what you are going to do and what they are going to see,” he says. “I don’t like a wet golf course; I like a dry golf course. I like bounce and roll, but I want a health environment. The communication to your members, guests, daily-fee players, whomever is your clientele, you really have to communicate what they are going to see because this is not what anybody is really accustomed to seeing. You don’t work for the USGA. You work for your members, your guests and your daily-fee players. It’s their money you’re spending on the golf course or trying to save and hopefully you’re trying to save some money. My question is when you go down this path and lose your job, where’s the USGA going to be. Are (Executive Director) Mike Davis, (Green Section managing director) Kimberly Erusha and (President) Tom O’Toole going to call your club up and go, ‘Wait a minute, you shouldn’t let this guy go because he’s doing what we think is in the best interest of the game?’” Moraghan is “all for” reducing inputs on golf courses. Selling American golfers on major maintenance overhauls consisting of less brown and more green, though, presents challenges. “Taking it to such extremes is where the average player goes, ‘I get it, but I don’t really want it to look this bad because I’m paying for this,’” he says.

Everyone is excited for the championship to begin but I have to admit I had to step back for a bit today. Getting up at 3:30 a.m. and being at the golf course til 9 p.m. or later catches up after a while. I’ve been running on coffee in the mornings but today after the morning work was done I had to take a nap.
 

Thursday, June 12

If we dodged a bullet Wednesday, we got nailed between the eyes just now. We were just working out how much time (irrigation) to put on each of the greens based on the moisture readings. Then the skies opened up just after 9 p.m. We got just under an inch, 9⁄10ths, in about 30 or 40 minutes. All you could see was standing water everywhere.

Until the storm just now, everything had been fantastic. The golf course was great. It looked like a British Open. I caught a few glimpses on TV when we were back in the break room at the maintenance shop while we were working out the afternoon schedule. It was kind of unreal to feel that excited seeing it on TV when the real thing was back over my shoulder. It made me feel like a kid.
 

Friday, June 13

It was a beautiful day for golf, but I don’t know what the spectators thought when they walked in this morning and saw five or 10 of our guys working in a bunker. It was a Herculean effort by our staff and the volunteers to get the golf course in such good shape to start on time. We had our mechanics and spray techs out there. Ultimately, I was really proud of the effort, and the USGA was proud too and very thankful.

We had one hiccup tonight when one of our guys hit a communications cable, but there was no major damage. I think the amazing thing is that with so many people and so much infrastructure that’s been the “biggest” incident we’ve had.
 

Saturday, June 14

That was a really good day, really good. To see the golf course get its teeth back was great, and it sure did. Seeing putts rolling off the green on 14 showed just how small the margin for error was and that is what you want when you’re trying to find the national champion.

I get to sort of piece together a picture of what’s happening with the play by being out on the course and catching some of it on TV back at the shop or at the Fair Barn, which is our staff and volunteer headquarters. Honestly, I get chills up and down my arms when I see it on the screen.
 

Sunday, June 15

One down. One to go. In 2010, when I found out I was going to be superintendent at No. 2, I got butterflies thinking about getting the chance to host the U.S. Open. I couldn’t have imagined it going any better. And now we get to host a women’s Open. So I guess we’ll just show up at 4:30 a.m. and get everything mowed all over again.

There was a really cool moment late in the day as we were coming down the 18th with the last group. (Pinehurst owner) Mr. (Bob) Dedman and (president) Mr. (Robert) Padgett were walking and looked at each other and shook hands. Honestly, it put a tear in my eye to see those two men share a moment like that because they really deserved it. They made some huge, ballsy decisions to do what they did to this golf course.

It’s pretty crazy when we get an inch of rain on one night and water the greens on two of the other three and yet they played like they did. It just shows the health they were in. Believe me if we wanted people (golfers) to cry “uncle,” they would have been. The greens were so strong that we could have gotten them like concrete and still had them in shape for another week of tournament play.

I am going to let myself have a couple of beers tonight to celebrate. We’re not going out anywhere, just very happy to be home and relax with the family.
 

Monday, June 16

This was a day to recharge for all of us. We got the morning shift taken care of then I think most of us found a spot and made the most of it for about two hours. The Fair Barn was full of guys in hammocks, on sleeping bags and cots. I lay down on the couch in my office and was all the better for it.

Bob Farren (CGCS director of grounds and golf course maintenance) might not be quite as refreshed as the rest of us. He had his family in for the end of the men’s Open and his son Casey is from San Antonio. So apparently there were some happy – and loud – people at the Farren house on Sunday night when he was trying to sleep.

The early feedback from the women is that they can’t believe the greens just went through a men’s Open. The women just love how truly the ball is rolling.

I got a really nice email today from Matt Shaffer (host superintendent for the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club). I know we all gripe about our profession at some time or another, but there are a lot of wonderful people in it. We’ve had a lot of them working with us this week and messages like Matt’s just show there are a lot of others who are here in spirit.
 

Tuesday, June 17

There was a good cheer from everyone when (assistant superintendent) John Jeffreys made the announcement to go home and guys were happier still when he announced that the USGA had bought ice creams for everyone.

We have our eyes on the 10th, 12th and 14th greens. There’s just a quirky little wind corridor through there and they dry out a bit faster than the others. They got a little hot at times last week so we’re staying on top of them.

Outside of that maybe the scariest thing still is mowing greens in the dark each day. We have some guys serving as spotters, but even so we have had one or two instances where guys have mowed on into the Bermudagrass on their clean-up laps. It’s nothing significant. We might be the only ones who would notice.

We had an interesting moment this afternoon right before our daily set-up meeting with the USGA folks. (USGA agronomist) Chris Hartwiger walked in and announced that his cart – and putter – had disappeared while he was taking some readings on a green. We’ve stressed to the guys from day one that they need to take the keys with them if they step away from any equipment. I think that’s the only hiccup Chris has had all week. He and (USGA agronomist) Pat O’Brien have both done a fantastic job.
 

Wednesday, June 18

The greens continue to do well, but I have to say we are in a position that’s not one we’re used to. Because of their firmness and the lower ball flight most of the women have, we are doing a good amount of hand watering to keep the firmness in check. That’s probably not ideal for the long-term health of the greens, so it’s a good thing they’ll be replaced with the Champion once this is over.

I also had a really nice few minutes with my family (wife, Laura, Bailey 15, Sadie 13, Grace 11). Bailey was a standard-bearer in the men’s Open and is again this week … it was great to see them all just lapping up the excitement – and then wandering off to do the same with some ice cream. Watching them disappear into the crowds reminded me just how lucky I am to be doing what I love to support the family that I love.

 

Up next By Guy Cipriano Two interested U.S. Open observers at Pinehurst No. 2 maintain a golf course likely to produce a similar stir. Chambers Bay director of agronomy Eric Johnson and superintendent Josh Lewis visited Pinehurst to gather information for their own championship experience. Chambers Bay, in University Place, Wash., opened in 2007 and will host the first U.S. Open contested in the Pacific Northwest. The course evokes images of the Open played across the Atlantic Ocean. Chambers Bay is a links-style course with just one tree – and plenty of fescue and bunkers. Chambers Bay and Pinehurst are located in contrasting ecosystems. Chambers Bay is on the Puget Sound; Pinehurst rests in the Carolina Sandhills. “It’s difficult to compare the two,” Johnson says. Still, the Chambers Bay duo left Pinehurst impressed. “I thought they hit a home run, personally,” Lewis says. “That look might not be for everyone, but for me, I loved it. It was architecturally spectacular. Several players said the greens were the best they ever putted on for a U.S. Open. If somebody got into the wiregrass, it was 50-50 whether they had a shot, whether it was a good lie or bad lie. I thought for what they were attempting to accomplish, it was absolutely perfect. It gave us a lot of insight into the expectations of hosting one.” The analytics of maintaining a U.S. Open became apparent while in Pinehurst, with the duo analyzing firmness, moisture and shot data accumulated by the USGA. Less than two weeks after the tournament concluded, USGA Executive Director Mike Davis visited Chambers Bay, which underwent $1.4 million in modifications following the 2010 U.S. Amateur. Neither Johnson nor Lewis worked at Chambers Bay in 2010. Lewis arrived at Chambers in the fall of 2011. Johnson was hired in the summer of 2012 following superintendent Dave Wienecke’s resignation. Chambers Bay’s biggest agronomic challenges stem from the fine fescue fairways and greens. Johnson and Lewis both previously worked at Bandon Dunes, a links-style facility in Oregon with fescue. Fewer inputs are required to maintain fescue, a cool-weather turfgrass. But fescue struggles to handle high traffic. Johnson and Lewis will have plenty of help next June. Chambers Bay quickly filled allotted spots for U.S. Open maintenance volunteers, according to Johnson. The buzz extends beyond the golf maintenance community. Some are labeling the 2015 U.S. Open as the biggest sporting event ever contested in the Pacific Northwest. Lewis calls the past 2 ½ years a “whirlwind,” but says Chambers Bays is ready for what awaits. “It’s about improving on what you have every day,” he says. “That’s the goal. We understand the U.S. Open is not tomorrow. It’s next June. We are striving for consistency and we don’t want to be peaking too early.”

 

Thursday, June 19

I guess the history is made now that the women’s Open is under way.

The greens continue to hold up amazingly ... I almost think we could do the senior Open next week if we had to. If there was one thing I might have done a differently, it would have been to spray a wetting agent on the Monday after the men. One of the reasons we’ve been able to keep the greens so smooth is the finer sand we’ve used for topdressing. But it almost seals the surface off with all the mowing and rolling.

One of the things I am noticing is not being able to run or go to the gym. And the food we’ve had has been so darned good it feels like if I’m not working, I’m pigging out. The good news is that the pants are still loose.
 

Friday, June 20

That was a good day that went awfully fast. We did well locating all the ball marks from the day before when they suspended play with groups still on the last three holes of each nine. We used flashlights and the maps the USGA gave us and it went very smoothly.

We did get a little rain burst at about 3 p.m., but again we were fortunate. There was no lightning involved so it didn’t interrupt play.

All in all, things went really well and we were done with our evening shift and out of there by 8:30 p.m.

Everyone was feeling a little sluggish today. It’s starting to catch up with us.
 

Saturday, June 21

We had our last setup meeting with the USGA folks at 2:30 p.m. We’ve been having them since June 4 so that’s a lot of days when six or seven of us have gathered in the USGA executive office trailer, closed the door and dealt with the nitty-gritty. It has been very impressive how these meetings have been run. They’ve been all about getting the right result.

I expect tomorrow there will be a few moments when I might think about the last two weeks and what it means.
 

Sunday, June 22

Little after 10 p.m. and we’ve just wound down “proceedings” at Maxie’s, a little pub in the village. (Assistant superintendents) Alan Owen and John Jeffreys and me, and a few other folks got together to celebrate. Everyone is so tired but excited and thrilled all the same. Back-to-back U.S. Opens. Man, that was so much fun.

One of the approach mowers developed a hydraulic leak during the morning setup, but we caught it immediately thanks to Steve Sheets (from Linville Ridge Golf Club) having an eagle eye and doing a first-class job of quality assurance. It turned out a filter was a little loose, and we got it fixed and didn’t really miss a beat.

I did not expect to water greens as much we did over the two weeks. I told (women’s Open championship director) Ben Kimball tonight that if he’d told me at the start of the month that we’d be watering greens that much, I’d kiss his backside.

It’s been tremendous to be able to showcase the golf course in June the way it was designed to play. To have dry, firm conditions for two weeks and to be able to control, pretty much, how much water the course got was really a highlight.