Glen Abby golf club(Jack Nicholas design) is one of Canadas premium daily fee golf courses and also host to the past two RBC Canadian Opens. My classmates and I had the privilege to have a tour of the course and to talk about some of the issues of housting a PGA tour event. One of the major issues that Scott Bowman( course superintendent) faces is keeping turf alive on some of the holes at the Abby known as the vally holes.
The vally holes sometimes can only see upto two hours of sunlight a day which is very hard on the plant and for photosynthesis to occur in such short amount of time. Scotts says it is even harder in the fall when there is less sunlight and daylight hours. These four or five greens need extra maintenence such as more aerating, verticutting, grooming, topdressing, and fertilizer. More of the cultural practices and not just getting out the sprayer.
The average golfer might see some of these greens today and believe that they are not upto par for such a high profile golf course. When in fact they don’t take mother nature into consideration, or they could stop for two seconds and think about the atmosphere around them or educate themselves about it. Scott does the best of his ability to keep these greens beyond playable. I can also say that they were mint for the Canadian Opens because I witnessed them myself as I was a spectator at the Open.
