Event setup: A superintendent’s view

I don’t think I’m alone when I say: As a golf course superintendent, I have somewhat mixed emotions when it comes to tournaments on the golf course. The main reason for these mixed emotions being that not all tournaments are created equal.

During the entirety of a golf season, most if not all courses will host various tournaments. Some of these tournaments are in-house, which is to say tournaments for members, and many of the tournaments are outside events, where the golf course gets hijacked for a good portion of the day by an outside entity.

At the course where I am superintendent, Avalon Golf Club in Burlington, Washington, most of our events are of the outside variety. Which is not to say we don’t have in-house events — we also call them “member” tournaments — but from a sheer number standpoint, the majority of our tournaments are booked by outside groups.

Although I referred to outside groups “hijacking” the course, I certainly see the benefit of having outside tournaments for the golf course, and specifically the ownership of the course. It’s instant, guaranteed revenue. These outside group bookings are also great for building relationships within the community, as well as getting people onto your course who very well may have never been on your property before — or may have never even golfed before. Companies hosting events are not only paying for the use and setup of the course, they are putting people on your course who might possibly someday become members. There is no greater advertising than having people play your course. It’s like an extended test-drive.

So, I definitely get the positives of having outside tournaments, seen both from the viewpoint of the pro shop and ownership. But the viewpoint of superintendents and maintenance crews may be significantly different. Tournaments can be — and often are — a big pain in the butt for the maintenance operation. Shotgun tournaments especially can put a sudden end to any maintenance on the course once the tournament starts. Another negative to outside groups is that players don’t exactly treat your course as nicely or with as much respect as the everyday golfers who book tee times on your course or the members who play frequently. This is obviously a generalization, but I do think it holds true much of the time.

I also realize I’m preaching to the choir here. We all know tournaments are a bit of a different animal than normal everyday play. But whatever our feelings about outside tournaments, they are something we have to prepare for.

Just as all tournaments are not created equal, neither is the setup for those tournaments. It isn’t always as cut and dried as simply setting up differently for in-house tournaments versus outside events, but sometimes it is. When dealing with an outside event, it often depends on the size of that group in determining our setup for it and how much time we will have to prepare.

Our golf course is 27 holes, which can add an extra wrinkle to set up for the day of an outside event. While a few outside groups will pay for the entire 27 holes for their tournament, most choose 18, which means we often have a mixture on any given day of tournament play and in-house play on the other nine holes. This can often get quite confusing. The easiest tournaments for us to set up are 27-hole shotguns that usually start at about noon or 1 p.m. For these tournaments, we will have a limited amount of member play in the mornings, but with our 27 holes we often keep that member play on just 18, allowing us to close one of our three nines until the shotgun begins. This often helps us with getting some maintenance done on the closed side.

The 18-hole tournaments that are early in the day, like a 9 a.m. shotgun, can be quite challenging. We have to not only set up the entire 18 holes by the shotgun time, we also have to set up for member play on the other nine holes before that regular play starts early in the morning.

Our tournament setup for an outside event includes many of the basic things we do daily, including changing all the cups, moving tee markers, raking bunkers, mowing and rolling greens, hand watering if needed, and a handful of other daily duties. But these tasks must be executed at an accelerated pace. And, of course, we are often limited in the amount of time available to mow other areas ahead of tournaments, like fairways, rough, surrounds, approaches, tees and collars. Some tasks can be completed before a tournament, but often we must get them done the day before or the day after. We tend to stay away from tournaments once play starts. When a group is paying a large amount of money to basically rent your course for the day, they don’t really want to see a lot of maintenance getting done.

For member tournaments, we tend to not only accomplish our basic everyday maintenance — or what we do for an outside event — but we also like to focus a bit more on the playability aspect of the course, especially the greens. We really try to get the greens rolling smoothly and quickly, perhaps double rolling all the greens or combining a mow and roll. We also spend extra time on bunkers on those days. The member tournaments are usually when we try to highlight the course to its full potential.

The other aspect to consider with outside tournaments is what type of group you have and how serious the golfers are. We often host state amateur tournaments, regional tournaments and college tournaments. We have even hosted PGA qualifiers at Avalon before. For these events, we also focus on highlighting the course, like we do with the more important member tournaments.

All tournaments are definitely not created equal. But we all must deal with them. As much of a headache as they can often be, tournaments on your golf course are always going to be there. Formulate a plan and do your best. That’s all we can do.

Ron Furlong is the superintendent at Avalon Golf Club in Burlington, Washington, and a frequent Golf Course Industry contributor.