Soon after the flock to Miami for the Super Bowl on Feb. 4, the area again will be in the spotlight, albeit a smaller one.
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Nearby Boca Raton, and more specifically, The Old Course at Broken Sound, will play host to the Allianz Championship and its ancillary events Feb. 5-11. In addition to the tournament, the event will feature the Drive for Wives ProAm, which groups pros with NASCAR drivers, owners and amateur players.
Like preparing for the Super Bowl, director of golf maintenance Joe Hubbard, CGCS, started preparing for the event well in advance. He didn’t exactly have as much advance notice as grounds crew at Dolphin Stadium likely had, though. In fact, Hubbard didn’t even have as much time to plan as those getting ready for this tournament usually do. Last year, the event was held in Iowa in July. This year it was moved to Florida, and the date was moved up a few months.
Yet Hubbard feels he and the course will be ready. Although this is his first time hosting an event of this caliber, he has had practice with state and amateur tournaments at previous jobs during his 35-plus years in the industry, 23 of those as a golf course superintendent.
Hubbard started at the 18-hole Broken Sound in August 2004, just before hurricanes Ivan and Charlie and a year before Katrina and Wilma blew through. Eight hurricanes later, the course is left with 2,000 less trees than it had when Hubbard started.
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The losses, which especially hit holes 3 and 15, include several 100-year-old oak trees and black olive trees. The course is still impacted.
“A lot of palm trees either splintered and died or are dying now,” Hubbard says.
Some of the dying trees remain on the course for woodpeckers and raptors because the course has been entered for consideration in Audubon International's Cooperative Sanctuary Program for golf courses, he says.
The crew is gradually replanting the lost trees, most of them native to Florida.
“Of course, you can’t find 100-foot trees to go in and replace the lost trees,” Hubbard says. “If you’re young now, by the time you retire, the trees will be back up to where they were.
The missing trees slightly altered the look of the Joe Lee-designed course, which was renovated by Gene Bates Golf Design and reopened in 2003. The course now feels like a links-style layout, more like something one would find in North Carolina, Hubbard says.
Other unique aspects of the course are its large, intimidating bunkers and the fact that it’s not lined with homes, which seems to be the norm for golf courses in the region.
But like many other courses in the South, The Old Course greens consist of TifEagle Bermudagrass. Hubbard and his crew have been working to get it tournament ready, which takes some extra work this time of year. The turf isn’t at its best because of the cooler weather and increased traffic, so the crew is applying more fertilizer. Pine straw has been added to native areas to enhance them.
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The preliminary weather report looks promising, but one never knows, Hubbard says.
“Last year at this time, it was 38 degrees with 35-mile-per-hour winds,” he says.
After the Allianz Championship and its ancillary events end, the crew will remain busy, keeping the course at tournament conditions for the media and the club’s members for a day. Then they will maintain the course at its usual condition until May, when rounds drop off. Hubbard says he’ll get a chance to breathe then.
But it won’t be long before the process starts all over again. The club will host the tournament for at least three years.
“I told the crew to learn from any mistakes this year apply them next year and still have fun and take it all in,” Hubbard says. “Not a lot of people can say they worked a tour event.”