No major changes at for Turning Stone golf tournament - Wednesday, August 13, 2008
By JOHN PITARRESI
Observer-Dispatch
It’s seven weeks until the Turning Stone Resort Championship, but if the PGA Tour Fall Series tournament had to be played tomorrow, the pros would find the Atunyote Golf Club in fine shape.
“It’s lush,” said Matt Falvo, Turning Stone’s senior superintendent for golfing grounds. “With all the rain, it’s glowing green.”
Falvo and his crew haven’t had to change a thing on their immaculate, 7,470-yard course after tweaking it last year by lengthening it about 160 yards, narrowing the fairways a bit and adding a half-dozen or so big trees at key locations.
When practice rounds begin Sept. 29 – the tourney proper begins Thursday, Sept. 25 – defending champion Steve Flesch and the rest of the returnees in the field should find a thoroughly familiar layout.
“We really haven’t made any changes this year,” Falvo said, other than some minor drainage work. “Our biggest goal is trying to make the rough more uniform. We keep it (the course) pretty much in tournament condition all
year.”
Offering a $6 million and $1,080,000 to the winner, the Championship is richest event in the Fall Series, which was initiated last year, giving Turning Stone a chance to hold its own PGA Tour event for the first time. Atunyote was an emergency venue for the last B.C. Open in 2006, when severe flooding washed out the long-time Southern Tier fixture at En-Joi Country Club in Endicott.
The tourney attracted 35,000 fans last year, far below the 100,000 Oneida National Representative Ray Halbritter had hoped for, but those who attended seemed to feel they got their money’s worth.
“Oh, I love it,” said Tom Gadziala, co-owner of Golf Unlimited in the New Hartford Shopping Center. “It’s a great event, it’s close by, it’s affordable, you can volunteer. It’s the best golf you’re going to see unless you travel.”
Steve Mahler, advertising manager for Turning Stone, said the field will be announced early next month, and he expects Flesch to participate in the press conference. Flesch, the 41-year-old lefthander, finished sixth in the PGA Championship Sunday. Last September at Atunyote, he shot 66-65-66-73 – 270, 18 under par, to down Michael Allen by two strokes.
Fans will get a preview August 26, when Vijay Singh headlines the Notah Begay III Challenge, a skins format that will carry a purse of $500,000. Mike Weir, the 2003 Masters champion, also will play along with Stewart Cink,
Camilo Villegas and Begay. The event will benefit the Notah Begay III Foundation, started by Begay and his father, which supports Native American youth sports programs.
The Turning Stone field will be dependent to a degree on who makes the Ryder Cup teams – the USA vs. Europe competition will be played Sept. 16-21 at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville – and who qualifies for Fed Ex Cup
playoffs, which includes the top 30 players on tour and includes four tournaments, concluding with The Tour Championship September 25-28.
The large volume of rain hasn’t been a big negative for the course, which gets less traffic than the resort’s other facilities because of more widely spaced tee times and higher greens fees. If there is pressure on the grounds crew, it will be that there will be a relatively small window for mowing each day during the tourney.
“Sunset is around 6:15 or 6:20 p.m. at that time,” Falvo said. “The weekend won’t be a problem (because the number of players will be greatly reduced), but practice rounds and the first two rounds, if there are no delays, they are going to be finished at 5 or 5:30, which gives us just an hour.”
Greens and tees can be cut in the dark, but patterning of fairways is more difficult, Falvo said. At tourney time, the grass on the greens will be double cut to .120 of an inch and rolled to get them up to 11 on the Stimpmeter, pretty fast. The tees will be at .350, the fairways at .450. The rough will be cut to 3.5 inches, but that could get to 4 or 4.5 during play.
Falvo said the course will close Sept. 16 as he prepares to fine tune it for the big day.
