EVENTS
Sportsman of the Year
Heisman Trophy
Swimsuit 2001
CENTERS
Fantasy Central
Inside Game
Video Plus
Statitudes
Your Turn
Message Boards
Email Newsletters
Golf Guide
Cities
CNNSI.com GROUP
Sports Illustrated
Life of Reilly
SI Women
SI for Kids
Press Room
TBS/TNT Sports
CNN Languages
COMMERCE
SI Customer Service
SI Media Kits
Get into College
Sports Memorabilia
TeamStore
|  |
Right on Track
As the clock runs down, the Florida project chugs nicely toward completion
Posted: Tuesday August 21, 2001 1:01 PM
By John Garrity
There are two ways to follow the progress of the University of Florida Golf
Course renovation. You can stand on the freshly poured concrete apron in front
of the clubhouse and look out over the 105-acre site, which is starting to look
like a golf course again. Or you can go to the construction trailer, kick the
mud off your shoes and ask for a copy of the weekly progress report. This
report, prepared by project manager Tom Weber of MacCurrach Golf, is a simple
timeline with all the construction stages listed in a column: drainage,
irrigation, cart paths, grassing, etc. The projected schedule for each task is
represented by a white box on a gray background. As work proceeds, each box gets
shaded in according to how much has been accomplished (e.g., "cart path
construction, 34%"). These shaded boxes, arranged on the page, resemble
strings of railroad cars in a freight yard. Hence the term "construction
train" -- used by golf architects and contractors to describe the
sequential progress of construction. "The train is a series of cars,"
Weber says, looking at his report for the latest week. "I don't know if it
has an engine, but from this schedule you can see where we are and where we're
going."
| |
WIth the heavy lifting mostly done, it was time for finishing touches like laying out the tees.
David Walberg |
The train is a curious metaphor, in that some cars reach their destination
before others pull out of the station. Rototilling was completed weeks ago, but
the grassing of greens and fairways has not yet begun. Earthwork and the
clearing of trees is 95% complete, but architect Bobby Weed still has four
greens to shape before the drain-tile crew can finish. Weber ticks off more
items: bunker construction, tee construction, cleanup and finish work.
"Eighteen loads of TifSport sod are coming next week," he says,
"so the plugging crew can start grassing the fairways. The first planting
of the greens is scheduled for two weeks from now, but I think I can beat
that. ..." Clack, clackety-clack, clackety-clack. ...
On paper the train moves from left to right and from May to September. On the
ground it chugs from east to west, heading for a terminus in the northwest
corner of the property. The directionality is a function of infrastructure. No
hole can be grassed until it can be watered, and the course's new pump station
is in the southeast corner, next to the retention pond. It makes sense, then, to
follow the irrigation contractor, who installs and hooks up the pipes closest to
the pump before moving on to the periphery. Another factor is the location of
the staging area, the place where vehicles are parked and materials stored. To
avoid damaging completed work, contractors like to work toward that point. Here,
the staging area is in the northwest corner of the site, where a new maintenance
shed is being built. At job's end Weber and his people will load up their stuff
and pull right out onto 34th
Street.
"We try to stay a couple of seconds ahead of the construction train,"
says Scot Sherman, associate designer for Weed Golf Course Design. "We're
running down the tracks in front of the engine, and we don't dare slow down or
everything will stop."
| |
|
Damage Control
|
|
When members of the University of Florida Golf Course
greenkeeping crew arrived at work on Saturday morning, Aug. 11, they discovered
that someone had left donuts -- not the sugary kind, unfortunately, but the
drive-in-a-circle kind favored by golf course vandals. Tire tracks marred the
9th green and the new putting clock, both of which had been
sprigged with Tifdwarf bermuda grass only two weeks before, and thoroughly
chewed up a sand
bunker.
"Kids having fun," says project manager Tom Weber, downplaying the
possibility that antigolf activists were behind the raid. "It stinks, it
gets people upset, but in this case the damage is minimal." So minimal, in
fact, that light raking and a rerolling of the affected surfaces had everything
back to normal in a couple of days. "We're now blocking the construction
entrance with a forklift when we leave at night," Weber says, "and
we'll park tractors in the clubhouse driveway so no one can drive on the
course." Still under consideration: giving the night-watchman assignment to
the alligator that roams the course after
dark.
|
|
|
There is a genuine urgency, in other words, about every design decision, no
matter how mundane. That's why Sherman keeps walking behind one of the four
teeing grounds on the 1st hole, where a worker on a small tractor is grading the
tee with the aid of a Topcon laser level. "Gosh, I hope this tee is
square," Sherman says, making sure the two little pin flags centered in the
front and back of the tee line up with the white pole in the center of the
fairway, 850 feet away. "You wouldn't think that rectangular tees would be
that hard, but they're a real
challenge."
What makes these tees tricky is the fact that they are staggered from back to
front, like 400-meter runners in the lanes of a track. The forward tees must be
rotated slightly; otherwise they will point toward the right rough. "With
free-form tees you don't have this problem, but we want this course to look
decidedly old," Sherman says. He shakes his head. "I keep measuring
it. I've got to believe it's right." Clackety-clack, clack. ...
A few hundred yards away Weed looks pensive as he watches workers lay sod on the
banks of the 8th green. "Saddest day of the job, right here," he says.
"I can't tinker any more." Up the hill, by the clubhouse, backhoe
operator Martin Rosas excavates a bunker behind the 9th green while summer
intern Ben Taylor uses a shovel and a rake to shape a "knobbie"
between the sand and the putting surface. "This is something you won't
notice until you have to play a little bunker shot to a pin on this side of the
green," Taylor says. "This will make it very
difficult."
Weed, in the meantime, has driven a cart up to the 8th tee complex, where he
finds things not to his liking. From the championship tee he can't see the water
hazard in front of the green; one of the intermediate tee boxes is either too
high or too long. "You need to take that 3rd tee down as much as
possible," he tells Weber. "I don't like that at all." Clack,
clackety-clack. ...
To see where the train is going, you have to step back and find high ground. On
this hot summer afternoon the view from the clubhouse is dynamic. Collars of
bermuda grass call attention to greens and tees that were indiscernible a week
ago. White-sand bunkers stand out like stars in a night sky. The big earthmoving
machines are off to the east, their engines a faint rumble as they shape the
11th and 15th holes. "The train is fully extended now," says Sherman.
"As we pull into the station, the engine will stop and all the cars will
come in. We might be fully grassed in eight
weeks."
In the old song you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles. There's no
whistle on this train, but make no mistake -- we're getting
somewhere.
Will the University of Florida Golf Course be a gem in 2002 and a joke in
2012? In the next installment of This Old Course, the architects ask hard
questions about oversized drivers, long-flying golf balls and the historic
tension between course designers and equipment
makers.
Issue date: August 27, 2001
|
Copyright © 2001
CNN/Sports Illustrated
An AOL Time Warner Company.
All Rights Reserved.
|
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.
|
|
