Behind The Scenes

As part of winning the GCSAA Turf Bowl, John Deere Golf sent the Auburn Turf Bowl team to The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. While The Players is not officially a major, the agronomists at TPC Sawgrass prepare the course to the same high standards as the official majors. From the putting surfaces to the pond water, the course is perfected for the best players in the world. During their time there, students  Austin Brown and Brock Pittman gained valuable knowledge about tournament preparation, but the networking opportunities were just as important. 

Austin Brown
Upon arriving at the course on the Monday afternoon before the tournament started, I was amazed by the scale of the operation. All I could see was a sea of green mowers and carts filling almost every square inch outside of the maintenance buildings. Inside the agronomy headquarters, the air conditioner blasted full force keeping the 100+ member team cool during the 6-hour break between the morning and evening shifts. I immediately figured the operation would be chaotic, but nothing could be further from the truth. Each day was carefully organized into two shifts: morning (4:45 am to 9:00 am) and evening (4:45 pm to 8:30 pm, or later). Our assignments were similar each day allowing us to master our task by the start of the tournament on Thursday. Assignments ranged from mowing to divot filling, but perfection was the standard for each task, no matter how small.

My morning assignment was hand-raking bunkers on the back-nine. I was accompanied by twelve other volunteers and a bunker supervisor. Five of us, myself included, were assigned to hand-raking the 12 massive fairway bunkers on the back-nine. Aided by a light tower and headlamps, we began in the dark each morning on the 17,000 ft2 fairway bunker on hole 10. Before this tournament, I underestimated the importance of bunker work, but it was imperative that we made our lines perfectly straight to ensure the players had a consistent lie and the course looked perfect on television. Most of the bunker work was slow until after sunrise, then we were able to move faster since we were making fewer mistakes (a few times we got called back to fix imperfections we could not see in the dark). By 7:00 am we would make it to the goliath bunker on hole 14 that measures over 300 yards long and about 26,000 ft2. The remaining bunkers went quickly, and we normally finished up around 8:30 am. Afterward, we were served breakfast back at the agronomy headquarters, and we had the rest of the day off until 3:00 pm.

The evening shift was different than the morning as our assignments varied slightly from day-to-day. Most of the evenings I was a member of the divot team on the back-nine. While this may sound like a daunting task, when about 15 people walk shoulder to shoulder down the fairway the job gets done in no time. Even filling divots is done to perfection at The Players. Instead of filling divots with sand even with the playing surface, we would only fill them about 75% full to ensure the fairway mowers did not track the sand during the morning cut. On two other days I helped with detail work on bunkers to make the raking go faster in the morning. For the most part, the evening assignments were much more relaxed than the morning. The one exception was Saturday evening when we changed all of the flowers to pink in commemoration of Mother’s Day. Our task was to remove all of the flowers so the next crew could plant the pink ones throughout the night. Thankfully, this task went smoothly as we did not pull any snakes out of the flower beds by accident. 

My time at The Players taught me about the teamwork and preparation necessary to host an event for the most elite players in the world. The superintendent, assistants, and agronomists at TPC Sawgrass demonstrated a level of attention to detail that is likely unsurpassed by any other profession. It was their dedication and organization that made The Players a success.

Brock Pittman
The prestigious TPC Sawgrass a beautiful course that is held to a very high standard. 

I arrived to the course on Saturday evening. There was a team meeting where we were introduced to the other agronomy volunteers. These were people from all over the world that we would later get to connect and work with. I was quite surprised by the diversity that was present. There were volunteers all the way from the U.K. to the Bahamas all gathered around with one goal in mind. That goal was to prepare the course to the best of our abilities to create a perfect playing surface. 

The days began early and the nights ended late as we had both morning and evening shifts. The shifts began on Sunday with a morning and an evening shift. The morning shift began at 4:30. During the morning shifts we would rake bunkers to make sure they were immaculate for the day. The evening shift jobs varied from sanding divots to fly mowing. 

The week and a half went by quick, but the memories and the lessons I learned will stick with me forever. I learned how much work truly goes in to creating a championship course.  I saw how imperative it is to pay attention to the small details. Perfecting the small details is what makes this course so prestigious. The management skills and practices were examples that I will take into consideration for all of my future endeavors.  The managers and supervisors created a work environment that is driven by teamwork. Teamwork was another major topic that was reinforced over the whole week. Overall the experience was one that I will never forget and I am forever grateful for John Deere for sponsoring the winning turf bowl team and GCSAA for all of the opportunities.