GCM at The PGA

Monday AM update

OK, I lied. Last night's post was not the final post from here in New Jersey. Not after storms rolled through the area last night. They caused serious issues in nearby New York City and portions of northern New Jersey -- flooding, downed trees, power outages -- so I felt the need to touch base with the maintenance crew at Baltusrol to see how the weather affected the course heading into this morning's action, which tees off in about five minutes.

And according to Mark Kuhns, who I spoke with just minutes ago, the good news is that the storms did little to the course other than give it a much needed touch of rain. "We just got a trace here," Kuhns said. "Just enough to save us the trouble of syringing greens this morning." There were no washed-out bunkers, no streams running across fairways ... nothing. The planned morning maintenance routine of double-cutting greens remained in place and green speeds remained in the target range of 12 on the Stimpmeter, even without rolling.

"We're ready to go, ready to get a champion and ready to wrap this thing up," Kuhns concluded. So am I. Now if I can just find a television here in the terminal in Newark to watch the tournament before my flight leaves. Wish me luck.

The end of the line

For the final time in this blog, I have an announcement to make -- I have posted new photos to the "Sunday photos" album, including a neat shot of the storms that eventually put an end to play on Sunday, forcing a Monday finish to the 2005 PGA Championship.

It's tough for me to mask my disappointment at not being able to see this tournament through to the finish. As I posted earlier, like many of the volunteers who have been helping this week, I won't be able to stick around for the final few holes of play tomorrow morning. For those volunteers, their real jobs are calling. For me, a flight back to the Midwest is calling. I can't say I will miss sleeping in a hotel room or riding shuttle buses or suffering through temperatures near 100, but I will miss the people I've met while here in New Jersey, the members of the maintenance staff that I've gotten to know and I will definitely miss watching that last group walk up the 18th hole tomorrow morning.

Although I do plan one more post here later next week to recap what took place here this week, I did want to take this opportunity to thank some folks for their assistance and hospitality during the past week. Clearly, the senior leaders of the maintenance staff here at Baltusrol -- Director of Grounds Mark Kuhns, CGCS; Lower Course Superintendent Scott Bosetti; and Upper Course Superintendent Doston Kish -- were unbelievably gracious with their time this week, open to sharing information that might not normally be shared with the media and at least pretended to not be annoyed when I asked to tag along with them as they hit the course each day.

Thank you to Janet Kuhns, who went out of her way to help me out during times when Mark, Scott and Doston couldn't. Thank you to the two assistant superintendents at Baltusrol, Jason Grode on the Lower and Jason Dorn on the Lower. Thank you to Ken Kubik and Doug Vogel, the masterminds behind the GCSAA/GCSANJ hospitality tent for never feeling the need to kick me out of that area when I'd worn out my welcome working on their computers. And thank you to the many full-time staff members and volunteers I met and spoke with this week. The names are too numerous to mention, but the assistance and information you willingly provided was invaluable.

For the staff of GCM, blogs continue to be developing technology. We're new to this game, but I can promise you that we're going to continue playing it. Blogs are a tool that has tremendous potential to communicate with and educate GCSAA members, and we will be committed to putting that tool to its best uses. In addition to blogs for special events like the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, we will be developing strategies over the coming months to make our primary blog -- http://gcm.typepad.com -- a must-visit Web site for superintendents each week, featuring the latest news and information from the golf course management industry.

For now, though, I will sign off and encourage you to check back later in the week for one final, wrap-up post from the 2005 PGA Championship.

A disappointing end

This is getting to be old hat for Mark Kuhns -- four of the five majors he has hosted in his career have ended with Monday finishes made necessary by inclement weather. After a few minutes of scrambling to make sure all the maintenance bases were covered for tonight and another few minutes of letting the reality of one more day of work before putting this PGA Championship to bed settle in, Kuhns and Bosetti shrugged off the developments as just another day at the office. "This is four out of five for you -- you're a jinx!" joked Bosetti.

As far as the plans for tomorrow morning, the full-time crew will report at 6 a.m. Many of the volunteers who were on hand to assist with maintenance this week will not be able to squeeze another day of work in, but Bosetti did not seem concerned. The only holes that will need prep in the morning are 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, as well as Nos. 4 and 5 on the front (since holes 4, 5 and 18 would be the site of a three-hole playoff if that is needed). Bosetti said morning set-up will be the same as it has been all week, which means greens will again be double cut with a target Stimpmeter reading of 12.

For me, it means another blog that will end before the tournament I was covering had ended. I have an early morning flight out of Newark, so I'll have to find out who won this thing upon my return to Kansas City. I do have more photos to post from tonight and one final post from on the ground here in New Jersey, so we have that to look forward to. And I will definitely touch base with Kuhns after the dust settles next week to get his final impressions.

We're cooked

It's official -- play is finished today thanks to storms that are rolling through the area. The tournament will resume at 10:05 tomorrow morning. More information to come.

Celebration to concern

Another weather delay hit the final round of the PGA Championship at 6:36 p.m., and it has turned what was a celebratory gathering in the GCSAA/GCSANJ hospitality tent just off the permanent maintenance facility at Baltusrol into one of sincere concern.

The senior leaders here at Baltusrol -- Mark Kuhns, Scott Bosetti, Doston Kish -- have been in the tent for the last hour or so, enjoying the tournament on TV, chatting with well-wishers, generally celebrating a job well done. But over the last half hour, as the skies darkened to the north, Kuhns began to keep a concerned eye on the weather, even calling up local radar on the Intellicats Web site to get a more detailed look at the weather.

When the horn finally blew, it elicited an frustrated response from Kuhns, who grimaced at the news. Bosetti and Kish soon were on their way back on the course, while Kuhns began to communicate with maintenance team members who were stationed about the course, instructing them to secure both flags and tee markers before seeking shelter. "The fans will go after those," Kuhns said sternly in one communication. "You have to secure those right now."

We are now getting quite a bit of thunder and lightning -- but no rain -- and the biggest concern at this point is whether they can complete the final round before dark tonight. If not, it means completing play on Monday, which is a headache I don't have the courage to ask Kuhns about right now.

On hold

The thunderstorms that have been predicted all week here at Baltusrol are finally making their presence felt. Although it is not currently raining here (2:50 p.m. Eastern), lightning is in the area and they have just suspended play. And a look at the Weather Channel indicates we now have a severe thunderstorm watch to go along with our heat advisory.

This development probably does not come as good news to Doston Kish, the superintendent on the Upper Course here at Baltusrol. I spent about an hour with Kish earlier this afternoon touring his course to get a first-hand look at the impact the PGA Championship has had, and one of his hopes was that the rain hold off until tonight. "It can rain all it wants after about 9 o'clock tonight," he said. "Just let me get these cars off my fairways."

No such luck. But here's hoping that whatever rain we do get this afternoon is brief, because if anyone deserves a break, it's Kish, the 26-year-old who has worked with Baltusrol Director of Grounds Mark Kuhns, CGCS, since his days at Oakmont Golf Club in the Pittsburgh, Pa., area. Kish has been in charge of all the practice areas being used this weekend, and he has been a loyal soldier for months now, offering up his crew, his equipment, his resources to Lower Course Superintendent Scott Bosetti and Kuhns and watching bravely as portions of his course were slowly chewed up by the virtual city that grows up around any major golf championship. "I've been happy to serve in a support role this summer," Kish said. "My team was ready and willing to do whatever was needed to prepare for this tournament."

It's pretty clear now, though, that Kish is ready to get his course back. And if you were in his shoes, wouldn't you want some semblance of normalcy? Although play continued on the Upper Course on a limited basis until the Friday before tournament week, portions of the course began to disappear a full two months ago. Corporate tents, the merchandise area and the massive Wannamaker Club take up holes 16, 17 and 18. The state police have a compound on No. 15. The No. 1 hole on the Upper is now the driving range for the tournament. Club and ball manufacturers had trailers on the third hole. There's a road on No. 10, a pedestrian walkway on No. 9 and parking on virtually every other hole. The only holes that have escaped damage are Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 7, and even those aren't immune -- five, six and seven were set aside as spillover parking, if needed.

Kish long ago got over the cringe factor in seeing his course torn up that way, and as I mentioned earlier, he has been one of the tournament's biggest supporters in the maintenance area. And help is on the way -- earlier this week, club members approved a full, wall-to-wall aerating and re-seeding of the Upper Course, work which will probably begin on Wednesday. Although Kish and Kuhns both admit it will be next spring before the Upper is back to normal, the goal is to have the course playable for members 30 days after the last tent is removed from the property.

They've just announced that play will resume in about five minutes, but storms continue to dance around the area. Keep your fingers crossed, and while you do that, check out the first batch of photos from today that are now posted, most from my travels with Kish.

Sprucing up the joint

Grabbing a cup of coffee over in the media dining center, I ran into Mike McClellan from Mobile Weather Team. I wanted to see how confident he was in the forecast he posted in the media center just a few hours earlier, which as my last post said, predicted a "good chance" of "strong to severe" storms this afternoon.

"What do you think about this afternoon?" I asked. His response was telling -- a worried look, complete with a furrowed brow. "I don't know," he said. "We missed out yesterday (storms skirted the area most of Saturday afternoon, but it never rained at Baltusrol) but I don't think that will happen today." Dang. And me without any rain gear whatsoever. A GCSAA-logoed rain suit would sure come in handy right now.

A few more notes to start your Sunday:

• If I had to describe the demeanor of Mark Kuhns, Scott Bosetti and the rest of the leaders of Baltusrol's maintenance efforts right now, the best way to do that would be "exhausted, but relaxed." Kuhns spent a great deal of his time Saturday evening chatting with visitors to the GCSAA/GCSANJ hospitality tent, with his family, with well-wishers from the club who made it a point to stop by and compliment Kuhns and his staff on a job well-done. As Kuhns and I rode the course after the end of third-round play, he marveled at the sea of humanity making their way back to the parking lots. "Amazing," was his response on more than one occasion. Bosetti also had the opportunity to relax in the hospitality tent for a short while Saturday and catch a little golf on TV. What all this says to me is that there have been very few unexpected events this week, the fallen branch on the tree near the fourth green being the major exception. They are comfortable with their maintenance routines, comfortable with the condition of the course and comfortable with the scores being posted. Now if they can just get a few extra hours of sleep.
• Kuhns told me that by Friday afternoon, the club had exceeded its budget expectations for revenue in the merchandise tent. That means everything sold over the weekend, including my $46 purchase, is all gravy for the club and the PGA of America.
• Jon Maddern, CGCS at Elk Ridge Golf Club in Atlanta, Mich., and a past president of GCSAA, along with his entire family, stopped by the hospitality tent Saturday. Although there to support his old friend Kuhns, the real reason Maddern was there was to visit son Brad, who is a turfgrass student at Michigan State right now and has been doing an internship at Baltusrol this summer.
• As editor of GCM, it was reassuring to hear Todd Simms (in the photo), the equipment manager at Baltusrol, describe our regular monthly feature "Equipment Basics" as right on target. "From my perspective, superintendents need to have a good, basic understanding of the equipment that is used on the golf course," he said. "And on the flip side, I think technicians need to have a good, basic understanding of agronomy, of the grasses that our equipment is maintaining every day." To that end, Simms puts interns at Baltusrol through a crash course in equipment maintenance, which includes the breaking down and putting back together of a mower reel and a basic course in reel and bedknife grinding.

The final countdown

The final day of the PGA Championship is here, and the first thing I saw as I walked into the media center this morning was the face of Greg Norman on the big-screen TVs that flank the massive scoreboard here, extolling the virtues of GCSAA in one of the 15-second commercials that appear regularly on The Golf Channel. Let's hope that's an omen for a good day for Mark Kuhns, Scott Bosetti and the rest of the maintenance staff today.

Want another good omen? The Sunday morning edition of the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger features a lengthy article on golf course maintenance activities at the course. Staff writer Brad Parks and two photographers -- Aristide Economopoulos and Saed Hindash -- spent Thursday night and Friday morning with the maintenance team for this story. The entire story can be accessed at the Star-Ledger Web site, but just a note -- free access to this story is only available for the next two weeks. After that, you better have a credit card handy.

After a brutal day of heat yesterday -- the high of 100 here in Springfield was an all-time record and 158 spectators were treated for some heat-related stress  -- conditions will moderate today ... a little. The Mobile Weather Team 8 a.m. report calls for a high today of 93, although a heat advisory remains in effect. The forecast also calls for a "good chance" of scattered showers and thunderstorms any time after noon, including this ominous warning -- "Some may be strong to severe." Let's hope the two previous good omens will overcome that one bad one and the tournament finishes up without a hitch.

One note leftover from Friday that I've been meaning to post are the unbelievably complimentary words of Rory Sabbatini, who stood at 4-under following the second round of play. "From tee to green, the course is in immaculate condition," he said in his post-round interview. "The fairways are pristine and the greens are just, you know, I don't think they get too much better than this. They are pretty much like rugs out there, just as smooth as can be." Couldn't have said it better myself, Rory.

Later this morning, I'll tie up a few loose ends left from yesterday before heading down to the maintenance facility. Before the end of play, I hope to post some details on the contingency plans the staff has in place to deal with any weather issues and a potential three hole playoff. There are 10 players within three shots of the lead right now, and Tiger Woods is lurking six shots back, so a little extra golf is a definite possibility.

We have photos!

We've done it every day so far, so why stop now? The photos that I snapped today in and around the maintenance facility are now up for your enjoyment, including a pair of shots of all that is left of the massive, 200-year-old tree from the fourth hole that was brought down yesterday. Work on that tree began shortly after 7 last night, just after the last group cleared the nearby 18th green, and Mark Kuhns told me that the Tree-Tech crews worked until about midnight before finishing up. No decisions have been made on what they're going to do with this huge stump. My suggestion to make commemorative toothpicks out of it that can be sold on eBay didn't seem to go over too well.

Baltusrol caught a small bit of relief from the excrutiating temperatures as the day went on Saturday. The official high at the course was 100 degrees, but clouds that blew in off some pop-up storms that seemed to dump rain everywhere but on the course did make things more barable. In terms of afternoon work today, there was little change from the rest of the week. The greens, which were rolling right around 12 this morning, were syringed and then single cut. Tees and fairways also picked up some irrigation (they will again Sunday morning), while the roughs were given a heavy dose of water to keep them going in these tough conditions.

Tomorrow is the final day of play and the final day of this blog. There have been a number of things that I had hoped to get to this week and I have made mention of many of them -- touring the Upper Course with Doston Kish, picking up balls on the driving range, serving a stint on the crews syringing greens. I don't know how many, if any, I will get to tomorrow, but we'll see how the day develops.

All quiet

You don't need a calendar to know that it's late in the week at the PGA Championship. One trip to the maintenance facility Saturday afternoon will do the same thing.

My hike from the media center to the maintenance facility was a long and hot one, and at least as far as immediacy is concerned, a fruitless one. For the first time all week, there was virtually no activity around the compound. The basement dining area was completely empty. The shop area was vacant. About the only activity was in the GCSAA/GCSANJ hospitality tent, which was as full as I've seen it all week this afternoon. Of course, it's air-conditioned and has free food and drink, so should I really be surprised to find it full? As for the rest of the compound, it's clear the rigors of the week and the oppressive heat are sending more and more crew members to cool and quiet spots in the afternoon.

But we did just get a rise out of the crowd here in the hospitality tent, from where I am making this post, when "Mark Kuhns and his staff" got a shout-out for the "outstanding condition" of the course from the announcing crew on CBS. Well-deserved, I might add. And in another televised development, it looks like John Daly just reached the huge 650-yard par-5 17th hole in two. Amazing.

I'll be hanging around the maintenance area until the crew hits the course, then I'll tag along with them to check out course conditions. You'll get a handful of photos and another post before we shut things down in preparations for the final round of the PGA Championship tomorrow.

Organized chaos

The most behind-the-scenes work that goes on in the behind-the-scenes world of golf course management at a major golf championship is, without a doubt, in the shop. And that fact is even more prevalent here at Baltusrol, as Equipment Manager Todd Simms is leading a team that is, to steal a very bad cliche, running like a well-oiled machine this week.

Scott Bosetti calls the comings and goings of the maintenance staff before and after their rounds "organized chaos." In truth, though, it's an intricate process that is organized in such a way that the members of the maintenance staff never even have to step foot in the shop to pick up their equipment. Prior to each morning and afternoon, Simms meets with Scott Bosetti to go over the hole order in which teams will hit the course during that upcoming session. Simms' team then stages the equipment in that order, and shortly before the start of work, wheels the equipment into place outside the shop, so all workers have to do is step into their utility vehicle, fairway mower or whatever and push the accelerator. When the crew returns from their appointed rounds, they drop off the equipment almost exactly where they picked it up and Simms' team goes to work again, bringing the equipment in for cleaning, sharpening of reels, etc. Like the rest of the crew in the maintenance facility, their days have been long, starting at 3:30 in the morning and stretching as late as 11 p.m. on some days.

When I stopped by the shop area yesterday afternoon, Simms wasn't there -- he was taking a well-deserved nap in an undisclosed, air-conditioned location. But two of his top volunteers this week were -- Jim Nedin, a longtime employee of The Toro Co. who now consults for the company, as well as three of its biggest East Coast distributors, from his home in Pittsburgh, Pa., and Andy Berenty, who works for local Toro distributor Storr Tractor. Nedin, who has a background in mechanical engineering and over three decades in the industry, has been Toro's point person at major tournaments for years. He has worked five majors with Mark Kuhns alone, and is considered one of the foremost experts on the Toro greensmowers that are being used this week, the Flex 21 and the GR 1000.

In addition to detailing the process of getting Baltusrol's equipment ready each day, Nedin and Berenty also introduced to what I've already called the coolest piece of golf course maintenance equipment I've ever seen, a claim that I'm standing by. For complete photos, I refer you to the "Friday photos" album to see what for brevity's sake I'll call the Ultimate Utility Vehicle (UUV). What is this beast, you ask? Well, it is a fairly standard Toro Workman with an enclosed cab and a flatbed trailer on the back that has been outfitted with just about everything a golf course equipment technician could want in just about every situation you can conceive.

Lights? The UUV has 'em, both in the form of a telescoping set of fluorescent lights that can illuminate an entire green to a work light that can be brought under the hood of a cooked fairway unit. Power? The UUV has that to, in the form of a portable generator. Air? The UUV also has that, in the form of an air compressor. This bad boy has a jack, an electric winch, welding material, a full toolbox. About the only thing the UUV doesn't have is a six-CD changer in the cab or air conditioning, which would really come in handy today and, I'm told, is on the very top of Simms' wish list for future additions.

I think that about gets me caught up for now. I may be speaking by phone with Jon Jennings, CGCS at Chicago Golf Club, later today about his experiences hosting the Walker Cup, which is going on simultaneously with the PGA Championship. But now, I prepare to subject myself to dangerously hot weather as I make the trek to the maintenance facility for the afternoon. Pray for me.

To the rescue

Not to be too overdramatic here, but if you're enjoying the PGA Championship this weekend, you can thank Scott Bosetti and I. Because we single-handedly saved the tournament Friday evening -- we put out a fire.

OK, saying that we "saved" the tournament might be a bit of a stretch. It's not like it was a scene out of the movie "Backdraft" or anything like that. We were riding in a wooded area between the tees on No. 5 and the fairway on No. 3 when Bosetti perked up and asked me, "Do you smell smoke?" I took a whiff or two and replied, "You know what? I do smell smoke." So Bosetti wheeled the golf car around and we began to scour the area to find the source of the smell. Pretty soon, Bosetti blurted out, "There it is!" and pointed to a small area at the base of a tree.

When we walked out to that spot, sure enough, there was a small fire smoldering in the mix of dust and pine needles that make up the floor of this wooded area, probably started by an errant cigarette butt. We kicked at it, trying to stomp out the embers -- fire, I now know,  is hot -- before Bosetti went off to fill a few empty bottles with water, which eventually finished the job.

Not quite sure what I'm going to do for an encore today, but we'll see what the new day brings.

The heat is on

I think I may have used this headline in one of my first posts on the GCM blog at the U.S. Open, but on a day like today, it bears repeating. There is a heat advisory in effect today,  which is issued when heat indices are anticipated in the 105-110 degree range, and the air temperature itself is expected to be in the upper 90s. I spoke with Mike McClellan, the principle at Mobile Weather Team, which provides on-site weather at all USGA and PGA of America events, as well as the European Tour, and he indicated there is a chance of scattered storms this afternoon. But considering Baltusrol has seen just 2/10ths of an inch of rain in the last 10 weeks (stat courtesy of Lower Course superintendent Scott Bosetti), I'm not crossing my fingers.

I had several interesting items I wanted to get posted yesterday, but other events -- most notably the fallen tree branch near the fourth green and its subsequent removal -- always seemed to cut in line. So right now I'm holed up in the media center trying to get those items written and posted on the site before I head down to the maintenance facility later in the day. Got to wait for the hottest part of the day to walk two dusty miles, don't you know.

The extreme conditions here at Baltusrol are beginning to test the mettle of everyone involved in maintenance efforts. As I rode the course yesterday evening with Bosetti, the word he kept using to describe conditions was "crispy." Greens were single cut yesterday afternoon, and crews received explicit instructions not to put a mower on a green until that green had been syringed. I'm told that technique not only gives the stressed out turf a little breather, it also serves as a lubricant for both the mower and the grass, which helps produce a cleaner and more healthy cut.

Green speeds by the end of the day Friday were as fast as they've been all week, hitting the 13 mark on a number of greens. That didn't seem to be a concern to Kerry Haigh, the PGA of America's senior director of tournaments, during a conversation with Bosetti yesterday, but Haigh did want want Bosetti and Baltusrol Director of Grounds Mark Kuhns, CGCS to closely monitor the green at No. 2, which he said was "getting close (to the edge)." Shortly after that conversation, Bosetti took a few putts on that relatively flat green to see for himself. He seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Haigh and told me that as soon as the last putt dropped on Sunday, "I'm going to drench these greens until the water comes running off them."

Aside from the light syringing on greens, the rest of the course got a healthy dose of irrigation last night. There were clear signs of wilt on fairways and in the roughs, and both Bosetti and Kuhns want to keep that to a minimum. They both admit, though, that there is little they can do once play begins in conditions like this to prevent that phenomenon.

Tiger Woods is doing his best to get himself back into red numbers this morning. He is 3-under-par on the day and just stuck an approach to within a couple of feet on No.  15 to give himself another decent birdie attempt. Stay tuned for more to come.