The US Open Qualifying Tournament held yesterday

Yesterday every member would of been so proud of your home course!  It proved to be a lot more course than most gave it credit for when trying to qualify for 5 spots in the next step to playing in the US Open.  With the green speed well over 13 and tough pins, most golfers were left wondering what happened. 

During the pre-tournament meetings with the USGA, it became very obvious that the defense of the course would be solely on the putting surfaces.  A lot of players assumed that at only 6700 yards their 300 yard drives would render the course defenseless.  Knowing most of the players would be hitting long bomb drivers and then try to throw darts at the flags, I had a plan from the get go to defend our home turf - speed, speed, speed!  If you want to get an idea of what the putting conditions were like, take a golf ball and roll it on a granite counter top!  The small size of the greens and the tremendous speeds proved to be more than most could handle.  After rolling several balls off greens a lot of guys got gun shy.  To continue to defend our course, I have been continually cutting the fringe around the green shorter and tighter to increase the ball roll of the approaches and collars.  This meant that if a player started getting really aggressive at trying to attack the pins and missed, the ball would just keep rolling, and rolling, and rolling all the way down the slope, right off the green and to the bottom of the hill. 

It was a great day for the Club.  The comments from the golfers ranged from "what a great golf course, I didn't even know it was back here" all the way to "those are the best greens I've ever played."  One of my Superintendent buddies caddied for his Pro and text me on his way home that he's never, ever seen greens that were that fast.  I have to admit, the greens exceeded my expectations.

I want to make sure everyone knows that Erick, my assistant, is largely to "blame" for the success of the tournament conditions.  He's been a one man wrecking machine getting the course in such great shape.  If you see him around the property, please stop him and thank him for all of his efforts.  There's no way I could of done it without him. 

Below is the link to the local newspaper article about the tournament for those interested.
Naples Daily News Article on the US Open Qualifier Tournament