Tim Wegner had to learn on the fly when he became the Brown Deer Park Golf Course superintendent three years ago, just six weeks before the PGA Tour was to make its annual stop in Milwaukee.
"That was the toughest year I've had," said Wegner, 29. "I had worked out here before but I never sat in (the superintendent's) chair before.
"Basically I had six weeks to learn the course from a management standpoint and to get to know the crew. I was only here for two weeks when they started to come in and set the tents up, so I was really thrown into the fire.
"That was my toughest year, learning exactly what the PGA Tour wants and expects. The job hasn't gotten any easier, but I am more comfortable in the job and understand what the tour needs and wants."
All indications are that Wegner has learned his job well, because U.S. Bank Championship officials and the PGA Tour both seem pleased with his work.
"Tim is awesome," U.S. Bank Championship tournament director Dan Croak said. "He understands what the tour wants and he understands what I want for the tournament.
"Tim works as hard as anybody I've seen to make that happen. Nothing against anybody who was here before, but Tim has brought this course back to national prominence."
The PGA Tour has been in Milwaukee for the past week, scouring Brown Deer Park Golf Course for flaws and problem areas, but apparently with little success.
"It's the best I've seen it," said Brown Deer's Dillard Pruitt, the PGA's on-site tournament official. "I know they've had a lot of rain here, but the course has held up real well, thanks to the work Tim and his staff have done."
That doesn't mean there haven't been problems with the course, however. Wegner's on-site measuring device tells him that the course has absorbed 17.6 inches of rain since mid-April.
"When you get that much rain, it helps the roughs grow, but it doesn't do a lot of good for the fairways," said Wegner, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1997 with a degree in soil science, specializing in turf management. "With all that rain, you can't get the big machines out there to cut, even in the rough.
"So the water just sits on the fairways and cooks 'em. So our fairways are going to be a little rougher than normal."
Three years after taking over, Wegner admits he had second thoughts when he first applied for the position at Brown Deer. The Glendale native was a rising star in the industry, having worked his way into the prestigious position of superintendent of Blackwolf Run's River Course three years earlier at the ripe old age of 24.
"After the first interview (for the Brown Deer job), I was gung ho, that was the job I wanted," Wegner said. "This is my home area and Brown Deer is a great course that hosts a PGA Tour event. What more could I want?"
Wegner then slept on the proposition and doubts crept into his thought process.
"I started thinking about leaving Blackwolf Run, what a great place that is to work and what a great crew we had, and I started having seconds thoughts," he admitted. "But when I weighed everything, this was where I had to be."
There have been some rough moments since he arrived, Wegner admitted, but he has never second-guessed his decision.
Wegner didn't even look back in that first summer. He took over the day after Memorial Day when Steve Bailey decided to take Milwaukee County's offer of an early retirement. Wegner, who had worked summers at Brown Deer from 1993-'97 under Bailey's predecessor, Gene Milota, basically had six weeks to grow into the position before the eyes of the golf world turned in Brown Deer's direction.
The rough moments have included all the rain this year. Brown Deer banned carts, and tractors, for 28 consecutive days in the spring but eventually Wegner's crew had to wade in and knock down the existing jungle. Damage to the fairways and roughs was inevitable.
"The rough got to be about knee deep in some areas, so it wasn't a very user-friendly course there for a while," Wegner said. "We knew there was going to be rutting when we went out there, but we had to cut the grass eventually."
The grass-cutting tractors damaged the course so extensively that Wegner estimates that between 5,000 and 6,000 square feet of sod had to be laid this spring -- mostly in fairway landing areas -- to repair the damage.
"Typically, we do very little sodding unless we are changing the contour of a fairway," Wegner said. "But this summer, for a while, we had four or five people out there sodding the fairways. We're in pretty good shape now."
The good news is that the tournament is held two weeks later in the summer now, since the PGA had this tournament and the John Deere Classic swap dates. The extra time has been a godsend for Wegner and his crew.
"The two weeks have really been blessing for us in helping us get the course ready," Wegner said. "Normally you worry about having the tournament this week, because traditionally we don't get a lot of rain after the week when the tournament was previously held (before the British Open). "You worry that you are going to have extreme heat and have to be out there, hand-watering all the greens, but so far that hasn't happened."
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)