East Lake's damaged greens / Tour Championship

[ualtim]

I just finished reading an article (----->here<----) on how the damaged greens are not going to be accessable to the players until Thursday, the first round of the tournament. They cancelled the Pro-Am. Practice rounds will be limited to tee shots on par 4's and 5's and second shots on par 5's as long as you do not attempt to hit the green. The only green available to putt on will be the practice green.

Not a great way to finish up the Fed Ex Cup. Quite literally, the rub of the green will determine the eventual winner.

Why not move the tournament if the greens are so poor? The Tour says that it takes more than 3 weeks to get a tour site ready. Seems to me, they did something similar with Tiger's tourney earlier this year, why not go back to TPC Sawgrass (which they own and control) and play it there? I hope that this decision does not ruin what has turned out to be a good series of events for the golf fan to watch.

 

[SilverUberXeno]

I hope that this decision does not ruin what has turned out to be a good series of events for the golf fan to watch.

Indeed! I think they're just so nervous, because they know how many people are giving the whole concept of the Fedex Cup crap WITHOUT having to move a whole tournament. And the people who bought tickets for this (presumably many who love near there) can't up and go to a different venue quite so easily.

I think they'll have it under control. Maybe by wednesday night they'll let the players out. It'll make for some interesting rounds Thursday... bogeys, anyone?

 

[Bravo]

Tim:

We are only 140 miles due west of Atlanta and have had identical weather. Our superintendent has spent a monumental effort on keeping our bentgrass greens alive. They are in good shape because of constant syringing during the day and a lot of hydro-aerating.

Bentgrass greens can die in a matter of hours once they go past their threshold...its a very tough situation in this part of the country where (frankly) its a borderline situation to maintain them...

Almost all of the Robert Trent Jones courses have bent greens but some are now converting to bermuda because of the high maintenance costs....

The good news for East Lake is they will reseed the greens in early October, the seed will germinate quickly and by the early December, they'll be OK again...

I think it's gonna be pretty ugly this weekend....they should have moved the tournament to another Atlanta area course that hosts tournaments. Wouldn't have been that hard to do...the field is small and all you would have to do is call on the volunteers who work the tourney to go to a different site. After all, they were taking the week off from work anyway and the PGA Tour staff was going to be in town too with hotels and air travel already planned....

What a horrible summer for us here. A record-breaker....

 

[ualtim]

I totally agree with you Bravo. The article mentioned they could not move it to another Atlanta area facility, I don't buy it. I mentioned TPC only for the fact its the PGA Tour's course and there would be no issues with the membership. Heck, I would love to see it anywhere as long as the greens are in good condition. I can love with browned out fairways and no rough, but poor greens can ruin a tournament.

 

[gwlee7]

It kills me to hear the membership at my little podunk country club whine about our superintendent wanting to convert from bent to Champion Bermuda here (Eastern NC) when his entire budget for the year may not even be as much as the salary the East Lake superintendent gets paid. We still have grass but the greens sure took a beating this year. If East Lake ran into trouble with all of its resources, it just shows how fragile bent grass is to the heat. I have played courses with Champion on the greens and it is indestructable during the summer. The hotter it gets, the better it grows.

 

[VtDivot]

That's it... I'm pulling out of the Tour Championship.

I need to spend more time with my family anyhow.

 

[Rockford35]

I'm pretty sure it's well known that that area of the country is annually struggling to keep their greens green this time of year.

Why schedule a round there to begin with?

What's this Fedex Cup everyone keeps talking about, I'm so lost....

R35

 

[VtDivot]

What's this Fedex Cup everyone keeps talking about, I'm so lost....

R35

It's the annual cross country road race between FedEx, UPS, and DHL. My money is on whomever hired the Bandit to be their driver.

 

[SiberianDVM]

What's this Fedex Cup everyone keeps talking about, I'm so lost....

R35

You're not the only one. Apparently, the UPS driver that was supposed to deliver my UST V2 shaft, that I need for my 4 wood that I want to use in the freeking Public Links in 4 days is lost as well!!

Oh, no. I'm not upset.

Never mind. Carry on.

 

[rmgr]

why not move it to TPC Sugarloaf, that way I won't have to travel 25 miles to go to the tournament, instead I could just go to sugarloaf which is 3 minutes away lol...

not that I'm going anyways, $85 for a ticket is way too much

 

[Bravo]

It kills me to hear the membership at my little podunk country club whine about our superintendent wanting to convert from bent to Champion Bermuda here (Eastern NC) when his entire budget for the year may not even be as much as the salary the East Lake superintendent gets paid. We still have grass but the greens sure took a beating this year. If East Lake ran into trouble with all of its resources, it just shows how fragile bent grass is to the heat. I have played courses with Champion on the greens and it is indestructable during the summer. The hotter it gets, the better it grows.

You're right about that...the champion or tifdwarf bermuda will just thrive in the heat....like any bermudagrass....

Bent is so expensive to maintain during the summer. The labor costs are huge to have the manual syringing....but its a superior putting surface - no doubt about it and it thrives in the winter, spring and fall.

 

[Bignose]

It looks like now that the greens aren't quite as bad as orignally thought: East Lake gets a little greener | ajc.com

The are allowed to practice on all but three holes now. Still, it is a shame. I know that I read somewhere (can't seem to find it now) that they are going to convert to a hardier grass. If I recall correctly, the membership resisted conversion for the last few years because it would take 3 to 5 months during which the course would obviously be shut down, but this embarassment convinced them it would be best.

 

[EDSGolf]

Just saw some pics of the greens on TGC and they look like crap, OUCH!!!

 

[Eracer]

There's a part of me that says good! Let them play golf the way we play it every day (except for the CC guys). Greens that have bumps and bare spots? Oh no! They might have to accept that a perfectly struck putt won't go in the hole? Eeegads!

That's one of the reasons the US boys have been getting trounced in the Ryder Cup. The Euros are used to dealing with the "rub o' the green". The pampered US players expect the resident squirrels to have haircuts.