University Ridge GC super Phil Davidson shares advice for hosting professional tournaments

Graphic: Golfdom Staff

For 33 years, Phil Davidson has had a role in agronomy. In that time, he held a variety of assistant superintendent positions prior to becoming superintendent at University Ridge GC in 2014, eight years after he joined the golf course’s staff.

Since 2016, Davidson and his agronomy team prepared the course for the American Family Insurance Championship. Held in June, the tournament occurs only six to seven weeks after the course opens for the season, providing his team with a minimal time frame to get ready.

“Not only does the tournament begin shortly after the start of our growing season, but 50 percent of our seasonal staff members are college students that finish their coursework between May and June,” Davidson says. “We may not be fully staffed until the week of the tournament.”

Once the tournament begins, Davidson says he encounters two primary challenges: unpredictable weather conditions and pro-ams, held on Wednesday and Thursday. Double shotguns occur at 7:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. on both days, leading to the longest days of the week for Davidson’s team. Everyone starts their agronomy work early in the morning and then waits until late evening to conduct their afternoon tasks.

Hosting a tournament takes a lot of patience says Phil Davidson, superintendent at University Ridge GC in Madison, Wis. It’s crucial to focus on controlling what you can control. (Photo: Phil Davidson, University Ridge GC)

After the final putt

Upon conclusion of the tournament, the crew at University Ridge works to help the turf recover from foot traffic and the damage from the grandstands.

“Over the last seven years we have created several paths so traffic problems are somewhat minimized,” Davidson says. “But, if it rains during the tournament, as well as six weeks before and four weeks after it, we will have to resod and reseed certain areas of the course.”

At the same time, the team also repairs the little cuts created in sloped areas on the course, as a result of the platforms used for each stand’s scaffolding base. When all is said and done, hundreds of cuts will appear on the course after the tournament, each of which needs filling in by hand and then smoothed out.

Two years after University Ridge began hosting the American Family Insurance Championship, the course renovated all of its bunkers, utilizing the Better Billy Bunker system. In a two-year project, crews removed and recreated each bunker to not only better control foot traffic but also create more chipping areas. Wadsworth Golf Construction Co., oversaw the project, which led to the removal of roughly an acre of bunker surface areas.

“Prior to this project, the previous bunkers had been created with high flash faces, as severe washouts had occurred with heavy rain events,” Davidson says. “The sand became contaminated with silt, and drainage became extremely poor. As a result of the project, we basically eliminated the labor that was involved to push sand back in place after heavy rains. And we reduced the amount of hand labor that’s needed to maintain the bunkers’ faces.”

For Phil Davidson’s crew at University Ridge GC, turf repair following a tournament is sometimes a several-week-long task. (Photo: Phil Davidson, University Ridge GC)

Advice for other superintendents

As Davidson reflects on his role with the American Family Insurance Championship, he has a wide array of advice for other superintendents whose courses host — or may soon host — professional golf tournaments.

First, don’t be overwhelmed by the numerous requests for the course. While looking back, his to-do list appeared to be “a mile long” when he first toured University Ridge GC with the tournament’s agronomy team.

Yet, he soon learned that he only needed to focus on achieving what he could, given the resources he had. Each of Davidson’s team’s agronomic practices “work backward from the tournament week.” With this in mind, he ensures that every cultural practice and application doesn’t impact conditions during the tournament itself.

Due to the tournament’s location in Wisconsin, he conducts some agronomic practices in the fall, several months before the tournament begins.

“This is especially important for turf growth,” Davidson stresses. “Over the years, we have adjusted the type and timing of the fertilizer we apply, along with our growth regulators.”

More than anything else, Davidson believes it’s critical for superintendents to trust their instincts.

“Superintendents are the experts at their courses. They know how their courses will react to every situation and process,” he says. “They must have confidence in their knowledge and utilize it to the best of their abilities.”