Ready, Set…Wait…Go!

The path to renovation Scott White followed at Urbana Country Club featured some unexpected twists and turns…but the “new” course finally came to life this summer. The timeline may have changed along the way, but the plan always showcased a turfgrass variety White and his colleagues in the area had really come to like: RTF Sod from Barenbrug.

White has overseen the central Illinois club for 10 years now and one of his mandates was to update and revitalize the course. “We have a single owner and he’s been interested in redoing the course since before I arrived,” says White.

So, what’s the mandate? “Our owner is very interested in keeping this a greenspace,” he says. “Part of our story is being more sustainable and better for the environment in the surrounding area and we have a huge drainage canal running through the property, so we are very conscious of how we do things. We’re looking for a whole different kind of perfect.”

The original plan was renovate the 1922 Bendelow-design in 2018 but other priorities (growing membership, clubhouse improvements and a multi-million-dollar resort and aquatic facility) came first.

Architect Drew Rogers was hired in 2019 to build a fabulous new 11,000-square-foot putting green necessitated by the pool expansion. They had it built and seeded – including RTF in the surrounds right up next to his bentgrass – and very quickly the members loved it. “We suddenly had a lot of people saying, ‘we want 18 greens just like this!’” Rogers was quickly hired as the architect for the full project and eventually they settled on a 2024 timeline.

Focusing on RTF

White wasn’t new to RTF. Back in 2016, he’d heard about Barenbrug’s HGT Sod and used it around clubhouse. “It was beautiful and we loved it,” says White. “So, we kept experimenting with it and we started to hear more about RTF. We wanted to sod around some bunkers so we used RTF Sod around the bunker work we’d done on our 4th hole. We hadn’t had rain forever, but the RTF stayed bright green and perfect. We began to think about expanding the way we used it.”

One of his big questions was the playability impacts of the wider RTF leaf blade. He still wasn’t completely convinced it was right for his midwestern club. “We were going to redo a couple of bunkers on 13th hole, which featured nearly identical bunkers on either side of a par 3. So, we put HGT sod on the right and RTF sod on the left. The idea was to not say anything and then see how they compared after a year.”

As part of his experiment, White looked at turf quality, appearance, drought resistance, sand build-up, etc., and listened for player feedback. “Nobody said anything negative about either bunker!” Finally, he shared the trial with a few of his better players and asked them to hit shots out of and around both and compared the two. Members liked both but they loved the RTF Sod. It also needed fewer inputs and was more drought tolerant. “It just makes sense where we’re at.”

White also experimented with RTF Sod on teeing areas. “We have some high traffic areas (with RTF Sod) and we don’t do anything to help it. We’ve pushed it, scalped it and taken it low. The lower it goes, the tighter it gets. It loves it. There’s nothing that tells me that there’s anything out there that would do better in central Illinois than RTF. It wins everywhere you put it.”

He shared a video with his members showing them PGA Championship site Oak Hill CC and how Jeff Corcoran and Andrew Green used RTF Sod there. They loved what they saw. “We’ve told them and even told Drew we want to be about 75% of what they’ve done at Oak Hill in terms of faces and such.”

With that in mind, the final plan crafted by White and Rogers for the full remodel called for wrapping every green, bunker and tee with RTF Sod. That meant a big factor in the long lead-up process and the 2024 construction program would be sod. Fortunately, he had a world-class producer nearby: Ideal Turf.

An Ideal Partner

“We’ve bought a lot of sod from Ideal Turf,” says White. “I consider them colleagues and friends.”

Andy Zeigler grew up farming, started growing sod professionally in 1997 and opened Ideal Turf in 2005. The more he learned about Barenbrug and RTF Sod in the intervening years, the more he focused the business on supplying it to local golf courses. “We started telling people they should use it because it does way better than bluegrass,” he says. “Customers responded to our confidence.”

He and his wife/business partner Ronni now grow about 200 acres of RTF Sod on their farm near Hanna City, Ill., and Urbana CC is one of a half-dozen courses in the region they supply. “We really enjoy working with golf courses because they understand what we do, and we try to be easy to work with for them.”

What should customers expect from RTF sod? “It starts at Barenbrug,” says Zeigler. “They’re doing the most in terms of research in terms of figuring out which plants are the best for production. I’ve seen our fields and customer’s locations go through extreme weather or traffic and the RTF bounces back. It just needs minimal care. The injury recovery will dazzle you time after time.”

Zeigler also says the varieties are very well-selected: “Appearance, color, texture, disease resistance and drought tolerance…they do well at all of that. Barenbrug is very methodical about using the right materials.”

He also believes RTF Sod is a fit for golf because turf managers are pressed for time. “They’re able to put RTF on bunker surrounds or roughs and they just don’t have to spend that much time on it to keep it the way members want it to look. We’ve had a couple of customers do comparisons between RTF Sod and other fescues or bluegrasses and it beats them every time.”

How confident is Zeigler that RTF Sod will be a fit for the new version of Urbana? “I have no doubt that RTF is the right choice for solving problems and creating a beautiful environment for their members.”

A Brand-New Course in 2025

The project finally began in the spring of 2024 and wrapped up six months later. In addition to Drew Rogers and Ideal Turf, White worked with a couple of world-class partners: Wadsworth Construction and Leibold Irrigation. “We started in May, closed completely after Memorial Day and the goal was to have everything seeded and sodded by Labor Day…and we almost made it.”

Ideal grew and delivered 19 acres of RTF Sod to the site. “Wadsworth had a sod team out of Georgia that started August 7 on holes 8, 9 and 10. It was a LOT of sod, but there were actually other places I wish we had sodded. We started with small rolls and switched to big rolls and our staff had to help lay the sod because there was so much to do.”

What did White learn from the process of laying that much sod? “I learned you can lay a lot of big-roll sod in places I never thought you’d be able to lay it. Some of the slopes around bunkers were extreme, but we handled it.”

He also noted that there was a lot of hands-on supervision daily. “You have to keep close watch because you don’t want leave sod out in the blazing sun, you have to make sure areas are prepped for it and if you need to give them some extra help, you do it. We stayed on top of it.”

But it really came down to water. “The number-one thing I learned, as you’re laying sod this fast and the weather gets unusually hot in late September, is that extremely hard to stay on top of keeping it watered. We had to keep the seed (on greens) from drying out without the sod floating.”

To keep the acres of new sod healthy, White invested in a small fleet of push mowers for his acres of sod. “We were just trying to manage the height because it’s all juiced up with pre-plant and you need extra water because it’s hot. That sod is loving life and just taking off like a son of a gun. And then all your labor leaves to go back to school, so it’s literally all hands on deck to water and mow sod all September.”

White tipped his hat to Mario Salas, the project superintendent from Wadsworth, and the Ideal Turf team who coordinated delivery and worked with Drew Rogers and his associate Joel Hornickel.

“I don’t think there’s a better architect to work with than Drew,” says White. “He listens, he looks at the land and he doesn’t create something you can’t manage. He’s very thoughtful on his bunker placement and tee placement. Nothing looks out of place. He found inspiration in the work of Golden Age architects without being too ‘templately.’”

Rogers deserves more credit than he’ll accept, says White. “The routing is the only thing left from Bendelow. It’s truly a Drew Rogers property. It’s changed so much. When someplace like Oakmont does a renovation and goes from a 9.7 to a 9.8. We went from about a 3 to a solid 8.5. It was really transformational.”

And what’s his take on RTF Sod now that he’s tried it out and made it a big part of his remodel at Urbana? “We’ve done five years of research here and I’ve also seen it in place at many other area courses. RTF is kind of bulletproof even if it gets wet or super droughty. It grows just about everywhere. You can put it right next to bentgrass cut at .250 or where cart traffic hits. It continues to perform even with limited inputs.”

He also likes the impact it will have on his new bunkers. “We invested a lot of dollars in Billy Bunkers with Pro/Angle sand, and I know 100% this grass will perform no matter the weather or the traffic. It’s been proven by the best in the world at Oak Hill and other places. If you’re going to put this much money into a project, it’s great to know you can count on the turf.”

So as he looks forward to welcoming members this season, what’s the bottom line for White? “For a hundred years, the course was great, but it really needed to be freshened up. This new golf course will truly be a Drew Rogers design with the original Bendelow routing. Our goal was to make it feel 100 years old but have all the modern improvements the golf industry has to offer, including turfgrass products like RTF Sod. It’s pretty cool and I’m excited that RTF will play a big role in the new version of Urbana Country Club.”