Bloomfield Township - After serving as the center of the golf universe for almost a week, Oakland Hills Country Club wasted little time beginning the recovery process.
Within two hours of Ryder Cup play on Sunday, crews began taking apart the mini-city that had sprung up around the event, preparing it for club members to resume play Friday. Members are expected to be able to bring guests starting next Tuesday.
It's a schedule Rick Bayliss feels he can meet, despite the fact 44,000 pairs of feet per day tromped on the course over the weekend.
"This is a system that gets refined at every stop the PGA makes," said the club's chief operating officer.
The turnaround time for the course is pretty quick. But a complete recovery for the grounds is a ways off.
Golf course manager Steve Cook said all the Ryder Cup hospitality chalets, fences, tents, bleachers and signs inside the course should be down in about four to six weeks. He said some of the grounds restoration will extend into next year ? possibly to Labor Day.
On Sunday night, crews began removing bunting and temporary fencing, as well as taking up the miles of television cables that had been used to broadcast the tournament around the world.
At midnight, they took a break and reported back to work at 7 a.m.
In the coming days, crews will begin taking down the tents and the temporary bleachers that were erected along the course.
Once the large items are out of the way, grounds crews can begin putting down grass seed in the areas that were trampled by spectators.
So far, the weather has helped make the recovery process easy.
"Mother Nature holds the trump card," Bayliss said. "If she dumps six days of water on us ... things get messy. With the great weather we're having this week, there should be no problem."
Oakland Hills doesn't even need nature's help in conjuring up rain to make the grass grow, thanks to its $2.5 million irrigation system.
Outside the club Monday, there was still plenty of work to be done as well. The arch spanning West Maple Road near the club's main entrance, which heralded the 35th Ryder Cup, remained in place.
So did many of the green and white directional signs on Telegraph Road.
For some of the neighborhood residents, there was work to be done as well.
Red Maple Lane resident Jane Murphy rented out her home to an investment firm whose officials had spent the weekend attending the tournament and its festivities. Monday afternoon, Murphy watched as crews removed the temporary fencing from her back yard, which abuts a hole on the club's south course.
"I have no complaints," Murphy said.
Her next door neighbors, Rose and Leon Ricelli, have a reminder of the weekend in their back yard that's hard to forget: a 75-foot mobile tower.
Like other neighbors, the Ricellis received neighborhood parking permits and two passes a day to the Ryder Cup in exchange for the inconvenience of the event.
The Ricellis allowed Verizon some backyard space in exchange for a $7,500 donation to Detroit Children's Hospital to help hydrocephalus patients.
They "sold" five of their passes to Compuware for an $18,000 contribution to it as well.
The Ricelli's 12-year-old granddaughter has had seven surgeries for the condition, which results from having too much fluid on the brain.
Source: Detroit News
