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Crews ready to show off their courses at Pro-Am
Published 7/28/2009 in Pro-Am
By KEVIN THOMPSON
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Brad Nading/Telegram — Golf Club at Southwind Superintendent Casey Sullivan takes the reins for his first Southwest Kansas Pro-Am.
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Laurie Sisk/Telegram — Buffalo Dunes Golf Course superintendent Toby Witthuhn takes a quick break from his duties prior to the Pro-Am.
If each hole at Buffalo Dunes and The Golf Club at Southwind were photographed, it would be hard to decide which 12 to put into a calendar.
Each hole on both courses is distinctive or photo friendly, or both. So how about just make three calendars, enough gifts for three Christmases.
One of the biggest reasons the Southwest Kansas Pro-Am golf tournament is so successful is the condition and layout of the courses.
The responsibility for the beauty and challenges for each hole lies with the course superintendents, Toby Witthuhn at Buffalo Dunes and Casey Sullivan at Southwind.
Both are fairly new at their current courses, but both are experienced at their jobs and confident in their abilities.
Getting a course ready for an event as big as the Pro-Am poses a number of challenges, but nothing either man hasn't faced before, though "frozen rain" in June was a nuisance.
A hailstorm pounded both courses, especially Buffalo Dunes, and both men faced their share of extra work to remedy the damage.
"The damage at the Dunes was fairly extensive on the greens," Witthuhn said. "If you can just imagine golf ball-sized craters, that's what we had here."
He said his crew had to aerify the greens, something they usually do just in April and September. Aerifying softened up the greens, then they used rollers to pack them down again to firm them up and smooth them out, then filled each green with sand, then fertilized and watered.
To the naked eye, the greens are in great shape, but to Witthuhn's standards, the greens are not 100 percent yet, but given the time frame and the extent of the damage, he's pretty satisfied with their efforts.
Sullivan said the hail storm didn't hit his course as much as it did Buffalo Dunes. Greens 14, 15 and 16 - the southernmost greens on the course - suffered the most, but he feels fortunate it wasn't more.
Buffalo Dunes employs four full-time employees and five seasonal workers during the summer. Much of the extra help is needed for extra mowing during the growing season.
Sullivan employs four full-time maintenance staff and 13 seasonal.
Buffalo Dunes' fairways are a combination of blue grass and rye grass. The greens and collars are bent grass.
Southwind's fairways, tees and greens are all bent grass while the rough, or "bluegrass," is a rye grass.
"It takes an awful lot of mowing with the acreage we have," Witthuhn said. "We're constantly mowing the greens and fairways."
The courtesy cut along the fairways will be cut fairly short, while the rough will be cut taller.
"We'll mow that stuff on Monday and then let it go the rest of the week," Witthuhn said.
Normally they would mow that part of the rough on a Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday schedule, he said.
"It should be pretty intense by then," he added.
One of the natural features of Buffalo Dunes is the native grass, the tall and wiry grass that seems to reach out nefariously and swallow a lot of errant shots.
Witthuhn said the extra rains this season and not mowing it as often as they usually do has made the native grass seem more menacing than usual.
Southwind's native grass is also thick this year, especially with the bluestem and love grass mixed in. The rye grass lives well in the sand with little water, but it loves the rain, Sullivan said.
"The native looks the best it has in a couple years," he said. "It's really thrived."
Sullivan said he will decide by mid-week whether to mow the rough or not, depending on any rains and what the temperatures are. He could mow as late as Wednesday or Thursday if enough rain falls.
Wide fairways with the courtesy cuts are very forgiving, Sullivan said. "If you don't take advantage of those wide fairways, and you hit into the rough, you should be penalized."
The above-average rainfall from the spring and summer has been helpful, Sullivan said, but a side problem has been more humidity than is normal for this area. That higher humidity has created its own troubles for his crew.
Extra humidity, he said, is extra moisture, and extra moisture on a course designed for dryness means fungus problems. Fungicides cost money and takes time to apply, and the process takes more care of the greens than normal. But he's pretty satisfied with the condition of the greens.
"The extra moisture makes the bluegrass look great but makes the bent grass struggle," Sullivan said.
Both men realize that the number of shots hit this weekend — especially with five teammates hitting from the same spot in a scramble format — will create an inordinate number of divots. But both have crews ready to fill them in with sand or a sand and seed mixture to help the regular grass grow back into place.
Golfers from last year's tournament will see the same basic course, Witthuhn said. The only noticeable change is a new bunker set-up on hole 13.
"It's right on the front left of the green with a big steep face," he said.
Sullivan said his course doesn't have any major changes this year, but he has done some remodeling of the number 10 green.
"I shaved the whole front side," he explained. "It's down to tee box height right now. Now balls, if pros back it up off the green, it won't stop in the rough. It will continue to go down into the pond. It makes a tough hole tougher."
The change brings the back bunkers into play more than ever, he said.
A new grass bunker to the right and front of the par-3 16 is another new challenge, he added.
The lack of any major winds this summer has helped, Sullivan said, in that he doesn't have any "hot spots" to deal with but it also doesn't blow the humidity away.
And no matter how much the course stays the same, he said, the wind always makes each round different. If it's 20 miles per hour on Friday and calm on Sunday, it's a completely different course. Or if it's 20 out of the west one day and 20 from the south the next, it's totally different, he explained.
"This course was designed for the wind," Sullivan said. "It plays a little easier without the wind for the pros. For the average golfer, it's still going to play hard."
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