Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John C. Miller, CGCS, is the Tour Agronomist for the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). He assists the LPGA tournament operations staff in developing consistent course conditions, primarily in the areas of greens speed, fairway widths, and the height of cut for roughs and fairways, and serves as a liaison between the LPGA and the host facility's golf course management team. Previously he was at The Golf Club at Yankee Trace in Ohio where he was the host superintendent for five consecutive PGA Nationwide Tour Dayton Opens. Mr. Miller is a frequent lecturer at industry conferences, including national, international and regional meetings. He is a member of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and the Miami Valley of Ohio Golf Course Superintendents Association.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

From national to local events, everything superintendents need for a successful golf tournament

Written for all superintendents and greenkeepers, Tournament Management addresses the needs and challenges you face in planning and managing any one of the thousands of golf tournaments held each year. From high-profile professional-level events to smaller regional, amateur, or membership outings, this book offers practical guidelines that can be easily adapted to all types of courses and to all types of tournaments.

Everything you need to prepare and maintain courses for tournaments is covered, in easy-to-follow, step-by-step detail, including:

• Evaluating staffing needs

• Implementing an effective agronomic program

• Preparing greens, tees, fairways, bunkers, and roughs

• Tending to cup-cutting, pest management, and fertilization before and during the tournament

• Conducting and assessing the results of a trial run

• Managing professional events

Tables throughout the book summarize key data for at-a-glance reference, and plenty of photographs help you implement the procedures set forth in the book. The final chapter offers a comprehensive pre-tournament checklist, ensuring that everything is in place and in order well before the tournament begins.

Whether you need to prepare for a televised national event or a small local event, this guide ensures that the staff and greens are ready to host a successful tournament.

Aus dem Klappentext

From national to local events, everything superintendents need for a successful golf tournament

Written for all superintendents and greenkeepers, Tournament Management addresses the needs and challenges you face in planning and managing any one of the thousands of golf tournaments held each year. From high-profile professional-level events to smaller regional, amateur, or membership outings, this book offers practical guidelines that can be easily adapted to all types of courses and to all types of tournaments.

Everything you need to prepare and maintain courses for tournaments is covered, in easy-to-follow, step-by-step detail, including:

• Evaluating staffing needs

• Implementing an effective agronomic program

• Preparing greens, tees, fairways, bunkers, and roughs

• Tending to cup-cutting, pest management, and fertilization before and during the tournament

• Conducting and assessing the results of a trial run

• Managing professional events

Tables throughout the book summarize key data for at-a-glance reference, and plenty of photographs help you implement the procedures set forth in the book. The final chapter offers a comprehensive pre-tournament checklist, ensuring that everything is in place and in order well before the tournament begins.

Whether you need to prepare for a televised national event or a small local event, this guide ensures that the staff and greens are ready to host a successful tournament.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Tournament Management

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence. -Vince Lombardi

All golf courses and clubs host tournaments. Many are put on for club members or regular golfers at the local public golf course; others are hosted by the golf course and run by professional organizations. These tournaments may take on a variety of formats, from club championships and member-guest outings to state and professional tournaments. But no matter what the format or the venue of these tournaments, a detailed and well-thought-out plan is essential to their successful outcome.

No golf course superintendent, no matter how skilled in the art and science of greens management, can effectively implement a tournament plan without the cooperation of all the tournament stakeholders. Thus, the first step in the planning process must be to identify these people.

Identifying Stakeholders

Start by making a list of everyone who will be involved with your event, all those you will need to communicate with throughout plan implementation. This list may contain some or all of the following:

Owner of the course/club

Board of directors, board president

Greens chairperson

General manager

Director of golf

Golf professional

Food and beverage director Tournament chairperson/committee chairs

Assistant golf course superintendent Full-time and seasonal maintenance staff

With that list in hand, you can begin to gather information from each of those individuals.

Soliciting Input

Solicit input from everyone who will be involved in the tournament, to ensure that you have all the information you will need to carry out each and every aspect of your plan, effectively and efficiently. The information you seek will, of course, vary depending on the source. For example:

Your golf professional will tell you the basic parameters of the tournament-the date of the event, the number of people playing, the type of golfers, and how the course should be set up.

The food and beverage director will provide you with a list of possible food stations that will need to be set up to accommodate the golfers and spectators.

The club manager will inform you about any contracts that have been signed, and explain the details of the agreements that have been reached with the companies, and how this will affect the course and the tournament.

Committee members (described in the next section) will itemize the expectations of golfers or members for the tournament.

The assistant superintendent and the maintenance staff will update you about current conditions and any problems on the course, as well as offer their perspective as to what needs to be done to meet the needs of the other parties.

Once you are sure you have left no one out of your information-gathering process, take that information and start putting it into useful, and usable, form. You might want to start by combining any areas that overlap or deal with generally the same issues or situations, to avoid duplication of effort. Once you have honed these areas, you can begin to establish committees.

Establishing Committees

Tournament committees will be composed of the people who have relevant knowledge in each of the areas you delineated in the information-gathering phase, those whose help will be critical to making the tournament successful. Tournament committees typically cover the following areas:

Scoring

Security Player Registration

Construction (this includes skyboxes, bleachers, roping and staking the golf course; this area heavily involves the golf course superintendent)

Traffic and Parking Communications

Media

Be sure everyone is onboard before scheduling a first meeting with these groups, at which time they will identify their specific goals and objectives.

You, as golf course superintendent, need not be present at every committee meeting; but it is your responsibility to communicate on a regular basis with the chairs of each committee to ensure they are addressing their assigned objectives, and in a timely fashion.

The information you will need from these meetings should answer such questions as:

What is the caliber of golfer playing in the event?

How many golfers will there be?

How many days will the tournament and any practice rounds last?

What will be the schedule for the tournament (including start time and type of start, e.g., #1 tee, #1 and #10 tees, shotgun, etc.)?

What time will the maintenance staff be able to return to the course if evening maintenance is required?

Will spectators be permitted to view the event? Will there be outside vendors setting up; and, if so, what will they display? What will their power requirements be?

Will portable restrooms be needed? If so, how many, and where will they be located?

As you are compiling this information, it's a good idea to generate checklists or action plans, detailing from start to finish who has been assigned to each task-from initial contact to on-site delivery of goods or services to cleanup and removal of the items.

Long-Term Preparation Strategy

Your planning process must begin months or, in some instances, years in advance, depending on the scope of the event. You will want to take a comprehensive inventory of your entire operation, to include your staff (number and individual capabilities); equipment (type and condition); maintenance facility; the course itself; and, most importantly, turf conditions, safety issues, logistics, and staging of operations.

Here are some general guidelines that every golf course superintendent will need to focus on from a long-term perspective:

1. Start no later than one year before the event.

2. Schedule regular planning meetings with all golf course staff and management.

3. Generate an equipment inventory.

4. Take an inventory of the entire operation.

5. Determine staffing requirements.

6. Review the golf course from a competitive standpoint, and make necessary changes.

7. Establish tournament conditioning goals.

8. Adjust the agronomic program to resolve any long-term problems for growing healthy turfgrass (see Chapter Two).

9. Develop a tournament budget line-item.

10. Conduct a trial run.

Evaluating the Maintenance Facility

A good place to start is by taking a good, hard look at your maintenance facility. Is it spacious enough outside? Depending on the type of tournament your club/course is hosting, you may be required to bring in extra equipment, additional personnel, or extra materials, so you will need as much space as you can possibly get. Inside storage space is just as important. Depending on the location and security of your maintenance compound, you will want to store as much equipment inside as possible, for security purposes. Nothing can ruin a tournament faster than vandals intent on stealing or damaging the equipment, costing you time and money.

Next, check out the repair shop. Is it well equipped? Do you have all you need to keep your equipment running properly? Do you have on hand the equipment necessary to make quick repairs...