Events like the Memorial Tournament could not take place without a great staff working behind the scenes. With the 2023 Memorial tournament in the books, I have had time to reflect on our 10-day stay at Muirfield with Chad Mark and his grounds crew as they prepared to deliver a test of golf that rivals any major championship. The planning that goes into preparing the course was inspiring, and many of the daily decisions are backed by data. That is why we were excited that Chad allowed us to test our new turfRad sensor to gather daily moisture numbers, and we were ecstatic that they used the data to program overheads during advanced week, and then used the daily scans to direct hand waters where needed.
Chad was all about firming up the course to create playing conditions worthy of the most elite players. The turfRad’s normal moisture bar has optimal moisture between 15% and 25%, but for this tournament, Chad wanted optimal moisture between 7% and 10% and even pushed it to 3% or less in places.
According to Shotlink, a department in charge of maintaining stats for all PGA Tour everts, hole 18 is the third most challenging hole on the tour, but what adds to the difficulty is how the Maintenance team manages moisture so that only the most well played drives stay in the fairway. This is a scan of Hole 18 from Saturday morning, and with 3% to 7% moisture, they achieved their goal to make this fairway firm and fast, a result Denny McCarthy can attest to.
With no rain in the forecast and extreme temperatures, managing moisture was paramount, and in some cases, Chad increased the hand-watering team from 8 members to 16 to ensure they were dealing with hotspots without sacrificing playability. The team would use scans like the one below to guide them to water-depleted areas, and according to the assistant superintendents, it made the hand watering more efficient.
Above is Hole 13. The crew is drying out the landing area while maintaining higher moisture in areas that don’t typically see play. This allows them to become laser focused in the zones that truly make a difference.
Once the tournament commenced, the Maintenance Team felt it was best to only hand-water the fairway. Overheads were not used during the event, but before the tournament, maps assisted the Irrigation Tech, Eric Perkins, to dial-in overhead watering programs to only apply moisture to needed areas.
Having the Muirfield crew put faith in the turfRad technology was validation of the effectiveness of these sensors. Areas that were hand watered the night before were revealed on the next day’s maps, and those that weren’t continued to trend dryer.
Dr. Chase Straw, a professor at Texas A&M University, conducting research into precision moisture management in fairways at Champions Golf Club, recently sent a comparison of turfRad’s moisture data vs. Toro’s Precision Sense. These maps were highly correlated, however the main difference was turfRad was collecting moisture readings every foot as opposed to every eight feet for the Precision Sense. The turfRad sensor was also able to collect those measurements four times faster, For example, at Muirfield, with an array of three sensors, we were able to scan 14 holes in one hour and forty minutes.
These last couple of weeks have proven that turfRad is an efficient and accurate way of gathering Fairway moisture data in which everyone can make data driven decisions on when and how much to water. The Muirfield crew are true experts when it comes to moisture management, but the turfRad solution will allow all turf operators to become elite waterers, leading to better playing conditions and water savings.
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