I asked Mike Lee, CGCS, to give me a "big picture" view of the condition of the course, based on everything they've been through up to this point -- from a hot, wet summer to rain on Wednesday then a fog delay on Thursday. Here's Lee, in his own words:
"As far as conditions of the course, we've had some serious challenges... especially here along the lake, we're just not accustomed to what we've experienced this year. We started spring with torrential rains, we didn't have as much as some other places, so we were really blessed -- but we did get 1- to 2-inches of rainfall every two to three days for almost two months, that's difficult to get your work done. It's absolutely essential to get everything done before a major championship, that was our first challenge, then we got some really hot, humid weather... we just typically don't get that in Wisconsin, or it's only two days and it's gone. And we had a lot of sustained hot, humid weather. Not only is the weather changing, we're just not accustomed to it.
If you grow grass in a part of the country where you have hot, humid weather all summer long, you tend to be very good at managing that because you learn from experience. We just don't have to deal with that, so we have to really quickly respond and educate ourselves, and mentally be sharp and say, "hey, we have to be doing the right thing." So we've been managing our cultural practices -- mowing, fertilizing, spraying -- to make sure we're properly managing this hot, humid weather.
Another challenge is the demand for our time, and part of that is the interest from the media that we didn't anticipate we'd have so much this year.
So that's the background. The condition of the golf course, it remains to be in really good shape. We had the 1.67 inches of rain. There was significant washing-out and that challenged us, we worked in the middle of the night to put all that sand back together. We did that overnight, then we came back in the morning and re-raked everything.
That (re-raking) is our standard practice. We just re-raked everything. We went through last night and shoveled everything up, put the sand back up (on bunker faces). Then we went through this morning, all of that was done, and we re-raked it normally this morning. It gives it a better finished look.
As you walk out there today, the first day of the championship, (the bunkers) really look good. We were able to respond, we had enough people, enough resources, we had everything here in place ready to go out and fix it up.
We're having a great round today. The greens, tees and fairways are strong, the rough is long, right now we're just in taking-care-of mode, and we're really anxious to get to Sunday.
We had a fog delay this morning, so we're running about two hours behind. So we will not be able to go out tonight and do any golf course maintenance. That is actually a blessing in many ways because the crew is tired. Advance week was fairly tough on us weather-wise. The crew could really use a break. Sunday will be a long time, just based on what we have to do. We'll bring a few people in (tonight) just to do some odd jobs. By and large, All the crew is going home early, right after dinner, get a good night's rest, and then we'll get in here a little early tomorrow and get this whole golf course ready by 7 a.m."
The crew was notified that they would have an earlier start time than usual on Friday morning. The crew is expected to begin work at 4 a.m. on Friday.
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