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Preparations, challenges and outcomes for the Ryder Cup at Medinah Country Club
March 8, 2013 By Mike Jiggens
Getting the Medinah Country Club’s No. 3 course ready for the 2012
Ryder Cup was, for the most part, a standard operation. With five
years’ notice, superintendent Curtis Tyrrell had the time he needed to
ensure his greens, tees, fairways and rough met the specifications
prescribed by the PGA of America and the home U.S. team.
But there was some additional work needed to be done at the famed suburban Chicago golf course before the bi-annual series of matches against Europe’s best golfers took place. Most significant was the reconstruction of the course’s 15th hole.
Tyrrell, speaking in January at the Canadian International Turfgrass Conference and Trade Show in Toronto, recounted the project as well as the other preparations which preceded last fall’s Ryder Cup competition.
The former 15th hole, which measured 390 yards straight away, was the No. 3 course’s “weak sister” on the back nine, he said. Its fairway tended to puddle up whenever a half-inch or more of rainfall occurred, creating a “disaster.”
Under the guidance of architect Rees Jones, a dramatic change to the entire hole was recommended which would address both the drainage issue and significantly alter the way the hole was played.
Jones redesigned the hole by reducing its length by 100 yards into a driveable, risk-reward par four. The risk comes from a new two-acre lake which borders its fairway and green to the right. From an agronomic standpoint, the lake was designed to address the hole’s previous drainage flaws.
The redesigned 15th hole coincided with a major greens renovation project which closed the golf course in August of 2009. The project involved a rebuild of 11 greens on the No. 3 course, along with its main putting green, to meet USGA specifications. The remaining seven greens were rebuilt in 2002 to USGA standards, but were regrassed as part of the 2009 project.
None of the project’s design changes was dictated by the PGA of America, Tyrrell said.
“This was all internal,” he said. “Rees came up with the plans and Rees implemented the plans.”
Tyrrell said the $ 1.5-million project “was not necessarily about the Ryder Cup. It was about the day-to-day play at Medinah.”
Members wanted green speeds to average about 11, “so we needed the best infrastructure we could to be able to attempt to achieve that.”
Tyrrell said instituting the right infrastructure was the club’s primary goal and, with the Ryder Cup only a couple of years away, accomplishing Medinah’s day-to-day objectives would allow the Ryder Cup to simply fall in place.
Excavation of the greens began in mid-August of 2009. Large amounts of clay tile were unearthed from the old cavities during the process which Tyrrell said suggested the club was thinking as far back as the 1920s when all three of Medinah’s courses were originally built.
The old greens were excavated to a depth of 16 inches to prepare for the subgrade. Each of the rebuilt greens was changed from its original contours with the exception of the fifth hole.
“There was a lot of movement, and that’s what the members were encouraging him (Jones) to do. They thought the greens were too flat and too easy.”
In 2006, Tiger Woods shot 18 under par at the No. 3 course which underscored the members’ opinion of the greens’ degree of challenge. The greens’ new contours are more subtle, Tyrrell said.
A standard USGA herring-bone drainage design was installed. A gravel blanket went in at four inches, followed by an 83-17 sand/peat moss mix which was compacted and prepared for seeding.
The new putting surfaces’ edges were sodded while the greens themselves were seeded to a blend of SR007 and 1119 creeping bentgrass at a rate of 11/2 pounds per 1,000 square feet. The renovated greens reopened in June of 2010.
“All of that work was done in a 30-day window and then the greens were planted.”
Tyrrell said the membership wasn’t particularly pleased with having to shut down during that period of time, and asked for that window to be reduced. In fact, he said he didn’t fight for as much time as he should have, but has ensured he’s been given the time necessary for a similar project currently underway on the No. 1 course.
“We learned the hard way that we opened a little too soon,” he said, but added the project was nonetheless successful.
The No. 3 course’s fairways were also regrassed with the same bentgrass blend as the greens. After Roundup was applied to them, they were scalped down in the “desert overseeding fashion.” The fairways were aerified in two directions to loosen the subsurface and create a seed bed.
Basamid granular fumigant was applied afterward. It requires irrigation to activate and, following a proper waiting period, a topdressing brush was used to fluff everything up and have it ready for seed.
Seed was mixed with a chicken manure compost obtained from a local egg farm. Cement mixers were used to achieve the proper ratios, and seed was dropped with a spreader. The final phase of the fairway project involved rolling everything in before irrigation was initiated.
“We had a real nice window of weather to get this established. We had germination in seven to 10 days on almost everything, and we were mowing our fairways that fall somewhere between 14 and 20 days.”
Tyrrell said he wanted to “jump on them” as quickly as possible to force tillering. He said he learned during the project that bentgrass won’t stolonize until after five weeks of maturity. Although it forced tillering, stolonization didn’t occur until after five weeks.
A two-yard-wide swath of Kentucky bluegrass was planted as a new first cut of rough, giving golfers a clear definition of the fairway and rough.
While the No. 3 course was closed, a cart path and hardscape improvement was undertaken.
When Tyrrell first arrived at Medinah in 2008, at the top of his agenda was the building of an organization intended to provide the product members requested.
“We needed an approach that would provide a uniform, consistent presentation of playability on all three golf courses. It was a big chore for us to build this team.”
When Tyrrell began to assemble his team, he did so with the thought of how it could be applied to the Ryder Cup. He said he had two things in mind: the course’s day-to-day operations and its adaptability to the Ryder Cup.
Three superintendents report to Tyrrell, two of whom have worked with him since his arrival at Medinah and one other who joined the staff a couple of years prior to the Ryder Cup. All four individuals do their planning and execution together.
Eighteen full-time staff work under Tyrrell while another 72 seasonal staff are employed from April 1 to Oct. 31.
Tyrrell said virtually all work is done in the morning so that members can enjoy the courses uninterrupted. The full-time staff remain on for the rest of the day to either hand-water, finish up spraying or mow rough.
A total of 43 acres of infrastructure was built for the Ryder Cup, including corporate hospitality tents, a media centre and member compounds.
“It was a huge, huge production.”
Work began on June 5, 2012. Each of the three superintendents under Tyrrell's wing was given a specific assignment by area: inside the ropes, outside the ropes, and standard day-to-day operations. All three worked round the clock, seven days a week to ensure the Ryder Cup’s preparatory tasks went without a hitch.
Several tractor trailers entered the property during this time yet no one arrived without an escort and supervision in setting up equipment outside the ropes.
Members were limited to playing the front nine holes of the No. 1 course as well as the entire No. 2 course. The superintendent assigned to standard day-to-day operations oversaw the management of those 27 holes.
Tyrrell formed a team of consultants when he was hired to work with him and provide independent evaluation a couple of times a year. The consultants include a Penn State University official who provides an academic perspective as well as USGA green section personnel.
“These guys all played a key role in helping us benchmark where we are in terms of agronomic conditioning in particular as we ramped up to the Ryder Cup.”
A large part of putting on an event of the magnitude of the Ryder Cup was networking with colleagues. Tyrrell said he and his peers “call each other and bounce stuff off each other all the time.”
In addition to his own staff, Tyrrell worked with event host, the PGA of America, which assigned its own team to complement Medinah’s. In 2012, the PGA team was on site throughout the year.
The PGA doesn’t really have a team of agronomists as the USGA does, Tyrrell said, adding it was up to the Medinah team to put forth a plan for course conditioning and bring forward other ideas.
Medinah’s staff worked with U.S. team captain Davis Love III who requested short rough and fast greens for the match play competition.
“What’s interesting is you work for your club, but yet you’ve got this new contingent in there wanting things done. So it’s a balancing act between the members who you work for and the PGA of America who you’re trying to put this event on for.”
The club fielded several inquiries from around the world, wishing to assist with the event in some way. Tyrrell said the number of inquiries was overwhelming, and a plan had to be conceived to manage the requests.
Companies such as John Deere, Syngenta and Bayer Environmental Science sponsored tournament week activities which allowed Medinah to organize a volunteer program for the week.
Tyrrell said the event could have been pulled off by the club’s existing staff, but added that a competition of the nature of the Ryder Cup was a good opportunity for some of his colleagues, students and others to get a taste of working at such a big event. Close to 300 individuals applied for 110 volunteer positions.
“Our goal was to make sure each of these volunteers got the opportunity to see the various different parts of the operation that was going on that week as well as have a little time off to enjoy the event and watch some golf.”
During the winter of 2011-2012, a grounds management plan was developed and presented to the club. It arranged for a cap on the amount of golf that would be played on the No. 3 course leading up to the Ryder Cup. Without such a plan, Tyrrell said, golf would have been played from sunrise to sunset every day, leaving little time to get any of the necessary preparation work done.
“The club was really good about that. We built that into our overall program and, with any lost revenue, we came up with ways to account for that.”
Knowing that he would have to deal with the media to a large extent in 2012, Tyrrell was sent to a type of media boot camp along with Medinah’s head golf professional and a couple of key members. The group underwent media training with Medinah’s public relations agency in downtown Chicago.
“That was a great experience, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to do that. They put me through the rigors of print interviews, phone interviews, radio interviews and television interviews.”
Several tough mock questions were posed to help prepare him for what he might face at Ryder Cup time.
With about six or seven weeks to go before the tournament, Tyrrell realized he had dormant poa annua on his fairways. The bentgrass was fine as well as the greens and the majority of fairway turf, but there were some patchy areas. Plans didn’t include aeration prior to the event which would have risked disruption of the playing surface. It was deemed the work had to be done, however, and the course was shut down five weeks before the matches began to permit aerification.
“We aerified the course wall to wall. We patched a few areas and we overseeded with chewings fescue at a rate of 500 pounds per acre.”
Tyrrell said chewings fescue has been incorporated into Medinah’s divot mix, and has blended with creeping bentgrass, providing good colour and texture as well as quick germination.
Once soil temperatures dropped below 70 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24-hour period, “all of our problems went away and everything came together as we had hoped.”
In 2012, Love picked up his involvement with more site visits, but reserved his plan for conditioning until after he had selected his team. He knew in advance that he wanted short rough which began to meet his specifications in 2011. The rough had been overseeded with bluegrass, ryegrass and fescue to produce a uniform colour and density, and was maintained at 11/4 inches.
During Ryder Cup week, maintenance staff and volunteers were assembled into teams of 15, tackling three holes apiece on each morning of the event. Greens, tees, fairways and rough were mowed while bunkers were raked and their faces were fly-mowed.
“This team of Medinah staff and volunteers did it all on that hole and, when they left that hole, other than setting the hole location, the hole was done.”
Work on all 18 holes was completed within an hour and a half.
“We were proud of the way the putting greens performed that week in terms of firmness and ball roll.”
Green speeds for each round were at 13 to 131/2. On the final day of play, it took a double cut and double roll to achieve those numbers “which is weird because you think that after all that repetition on the last day, you wouldn’t have to touch them.”
Work on the greens began later than normal on the final day. A little more growth was realized on the greens with the later start to the day’s matches.
Tyrrell said that on the Friday afternoon of the matches, he was approached by the European contingent who believed the greens were faster than they were during the morning matches. The greens were stimped again to prove speeds were consistent throughout the day.
“It was a friendly challenge,” he said.
The European team had its own agronomists who acted merely as observers yet shared information with their American counterparts.
“We learned from them and they learned from us. It was a wonderful experience.”
The matches drew 33,000 spectators a day for the practice rounds and 55,000 each day of the event itself.
On the Monday following the end of the matches, Tyrrell said he looked at the golf course for the first time since his arrival in 2008 without thinking about the Ryder Cup.
“For five years I had walked that property and it was all about that one week.”
It took until the end of November to remove everything connected to the Ryder Cup from the golf course. Because conditions were dry during competition week, damage to the course was minimal. It was estimated the cost to pull the course back together afterwards was $ 250,000.
Normal course standards were pursued afterwards with the rough being allowed to grow out and green speeds knocked back to about 11.
Immediately following the Ryder Cup, renovation work began on the No. 1 course with the rebuilding of greens, tees and fairways and improvements to drainage. The course is expected to be closed throughout 2013 with play diverted to the No. 3 course which is normally used as an outlet for guest play and business entertainment.
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