What is done to the ANGC course to prep it for holding the Masters?

[Thomas Dai]

What is done to the ANGC course to prep it for holding the Masters?
Atb

[Wade Whitehead]

When does AGNC conduct late winter aerification?  Do they aerify immediately after the tournament?

WW

[Marty Bonnar]

The importation of three and a half thousand tons (Full Disclosure: I made this figure up) of fake pine straw.

Regards,
F.

[James Brown]

A couple of things I know of:


They turn down the green moisture level by about 50 percent using the air system.


They go to a different fairway mowing pattern a few weeks out to slow down the fairways a little. 

[Thomas Dai]

Some things I've heard mentioned. Any confirmation?


Raise the water levels in the creek/pond by adjusting the weir?
Get the flowers to bloom with hot air guns?
Paint grass that's not perfect green?


How many extra maintenance crew are taken on?
How many extra machines bought in from elsewhere?
Overtime hours?


Just curious.


Atb

[Kalen Braley]

From stuff I've read in the past, but cannot 100% confirm.

1)  Either putting heat or ice blankets around the flowers to bloom at just the right time.
2)  During tourney week each hole has the same number of maintenance guys that a typical entire course would have.
3)  Put dye in the water to get it to look just right, (except when it rains and goes muddy, tough to control that)
4)  Double and triple roll the greens every night and every morning.
5)  And from peeps on here, nary even one weed can be found on the property...

P.S.  I'm assuming they have all the housing areas staked off and monitored....but who knows from all the legendary stories I've heard of people behaving, maybe this isn't even necessary.

[Greg Chambers]

This thread is pretty silly.  Any information obtained here will be nothing more than hearsay and conjecture...as anybody who does know exactly what goes into prepping the course certainly isn't going to post about it on a public forum.  Carry on.....

[Jason Kang]

That's fair for the most part...in a former life my brother-in-law was a class A super and was invited to help with the tournament (common practice, cool for the CV, it's a point of pride for the home club, etc etc).  Most intense and coolest period of of the year for him for a couple of years.  On a superficial level, he told me what he was assigned to do, demurs when pressed about anything technical.  Not a cagey dude in general so that always gets a laugh out of me.         

[/size][size=78%]"Here's how they prep.  Imagine what you would do to fulfill your passion on an unlimited budget and all the expertise in the world at your fingertips."[/size]

This thread is pretty silly.  Any information obtained here will be nothing more than hearsay and conjecture...as anybody who does know exactly what goes into prepping the course certainly isn't going to post about it on a public forum.  Carry on.....

[Dave McCollum]

I’ve posted this before.  I read an article by an Aussie super who went to turf school in the US and then interned at some well known courses including ANGC.  Couldn’t find the article again.  But here are some of the things he mentioned that impressed my feeble memory:

The first thing an employee does is sign a confidentiality agreement.

There are separate maintenance crews including a super for each nine holes.  Another crew to handle off course flora.  Around 40 or so leading up to the Masters and 100 or so for the final prep.

They limit fertilizer so as not to grow more grass they have to mow. 

They turn off the automatic irrigation on the greens several months before the Master and for the whole course for the last month.  Everything is hand watered as needed, depending on the rain.
 
Mower reels are sharpened daily (or swapped out for sharp ones).

According to this source, they don’t us ice and heat lamps to control blooming plants.  There are just too many.

Off the top of my head and his article must be from quite some time ago.       

[Ben Sims]

Everybody in the State of Georgia must have ice or heat lamps this year since the Azalea's are blooming from Augusta to Carrollton.

 

[mike_beene]

Would you count slowing the greens down immediately after the tournament and closing for the summer as part of next years preparation?