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.
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