US Women’s Open Greens Restoration

Round 1 began today of another chapter in history of great USGA events at Oakmont Country Club in western Pennsylvania.

This week the women get their first championship shot at golf’s toughest test. Oh, and by the way this tough test is created without a drop of water on the property. Yes, the western PA topography, and the original layout, albeit with 186 bunkers, rule the day here.

I dug out this old picture from late October in 2005, and we are completing the final touch ups on our non-invasive subsurface greens drainage installation at # 18 green at Oakmont http://www.oakmont-countryclub.org/ . Off in the background are the trees in full fall colour lining the right side of hole #1. I am completely biased in my opinion having personally installed our golf greens drainage system here in stages from 2002-2005. Seems like a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday, having spent several weeks on some of the finest golfing terrain available to the world. Of course it is the golf greens at Oakmont that really deserve the accolades here. While the rest of the course is eerily intimidating, the golf greens themselves provide the final defence against par if it was set up that way by the USGA http://www.usga.org/ . With the club being able to maintain consistent soil moisture across every golf green, it help allows for some of the unusually strong turf vigor on display in western PA this weekend.

From what I saw briefly on TV today, the greens most certainly look as fast as ever, but as is always the case here, the putts seemed to be rolling true and straight, so if you start the golf ball on line it will maintain the line and reward the truly great putter who read it right. Another thing on today that I noticed as well, is the deep long fescue rough looks much more mature than at the men’s open in 07. The stunning gold colour of the fescue is a sweet contrast to the green of the rest of the club. Although this colour of green is a healthy looking hue devoid of the overuse of chemicals to provide this perfect colour. Folks, this is turfgrass management at its highest level.

So, congratulations to John Zimmers, and his stellar staff this year, the course looks great,as it always does on any given day, and thanks for letting XGD Systems help sponsor your maintenance staff volunteers.

Later, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer