Source: Guelph Mercury (Ontario, Canada)
David Kuypers tends to watch the Masters golf tournament a little more closely than most.
Oh, it's not that Kuypers has a keener interest in the outcome of the tournament, which started yesterday at Augusta National Golf Club. No, the 31-year-old Mississauga native might be more interested in how the course looks than who winds up wearing the green jacket on Sunday.
Kuypers, who officially took over as the Cutten Club's new golf course superintendent last Friday, spent nine months at the fabled golf course doing an internship while attending Penn State University. He was part of the team that prepared Augusta National, one of the world's most talked-about golf courses, for the annual tournament and got to see the 1998 event from inside the ropes.
But Kuypers has memories of rebuilding a greenside bunker on the first day of the '98 Masters, which takes some of the edge off the awe-inspiring, legendary status of the golf course for him.
"You get over (the awe of Augusta) pretty quick due to the sheer volume of the work," Kuypers said with a smile. "Your to-do list is like 14 things long so you'd better stop looking around and start working. But when you're there early in the morning or late at night, you have to stop and look around.
"It's a surreal moment, it's awe-inspiring. It slaps you back to reality."
Augusta National, though, appears very different in person.
"I'd watched that tournament since I was six years old, so I knew the course," Kuypers said. "But I had trouble recognizing some of the holes. It's a lot hillier than you see on TV and it's a lot more wide open."
Most of the work preparing the course for the tournament is done before Masters week, even though members can play it right up until the Monday before the event starts. During the 1998 Masters, Kuypers had a variety of jobs to keep him busy, including mowing the greens before the start of play and rebuilding a bunker on the 16th hole after it was washed out by rain the night before the first round started.
"In some respects, it's a job like any other," Kuypers said. "Obviously, in other ways the pressure they're under is enormous because the expectation is perfection. The bar is set unbelievably high."
Now Kuypers had brought his skill in keeping a golf course vibrant to the Cutten, adding Guelph's Stanley Thompson-designed course to a resume that includes stops at some of the top clubs in North America - Toronto Golf Club, Bayview, Congressional, Winged Foot and Augusta National. This is his first job as a superintendent, having been an assistant for most of his young career, but he got the nod ahead of roughly 85 other applicants and his experience was a major factor.
"It was significant," Cutten general manager Craig Moore said, adding that Augusta National golf course superintendent Brad Owen called on Kuypers' behalf. "Personality-wise, he was a good fit. With where we're trying to go, he's somebody we can grow with and that's very important. His visual of what he's trying to do here is very professional, very mature."
Owen is the man responsible for getting Augusta National in playing shape for the Masters. A reference from him carries a lot of weight in the golf course industry.
"It was humbling he'd take the time out in March (a month before the Masters) and call here to be a reference for me," Kuypers said. "I have nothing but fond memories and good things to say about Brad. I learned a lot from him. They treated me well and I worked hard to hold up my end."