never a dull moment

grand cypress continues to challenge tom alex

The 18-hole New Course is reminiscent of the Old Course of St. Andrews, Scotland. Jack Nicklaus brought the Scottish links to central Florida, complete with 12-foot pot bunkers, stone walls, bridges and more. Most of the course is moved with Jacobsen's lightweight LF-4677 7-gang mower with a big 139-inch cut.

When director of golf course maintenance Tom Alex arrived at Grand Cypress Golf Club, Orlando, Florida, in June 1983, the property was still an orange grove. More than 20 years later, each day continues to bring new challenges.

“These are not ordinary golf courses,” he says. “When Jack Nicklaus and his people come in, they do things right. I’ve always said that if a superintendent has a well-built golf course, a reasonable budget and the equipment and people to maintain it, that takes away any excuses. We just have to provide results. And the challenges never cease. We’re rebuilding every summer. Whether it’s cart paths, bunkers, drainage or tree work, we do everything ourselves.”

The north and south nines opened in 1984,  while the east nine and three-hole golf academy with driving range opened in 1986. A links-style 18-hole course opened two years later.

Doing more with less

Although the number of rounds played has dropped slightly, Grand Cypress still plays host to nearly 80,000 golfers a year. At its peak, Alex had a staff of 65 employees. At present the maintenance department numbers 51.

	Maintenance manager Larry Smith (left) and superintendent Tom Alex.

“Because of economic issues and belt tightening, we’ve had to do more with less,” Alex says. “We’ve gotten a lot more efficient with our labor. We’ve done little things to soften some of the course features. We’ve taken areas that were totally fly-mowed and rolled them so we can mow some portions with Tri-Kings. Little things like that reduce some of the hand work.”

When Nicklaus acquired the property, there was basically an elevation change of 1 foot from one end to the other. His design includes ledges, dramatic bunkers and some elevated greens and tees.

“We haven’t touched any of those design features and never would,” Alex says. “But where we can go in and tweak the courses a little bit to make maintenance easier, we’ve done it.”

For example, some fairway mounds were connected and there was tall grass everywhere. Landing areas were opened up and sodded with Bermuda grass to allow the staff to go over them with a five-gang mower. Lake banks were softened so mowers can get to the edge of
the water.

Alex developed a program to greatly increase the efficiency of greens mowing. After an operator finishes a green, he fixes and seeds ball marks and rakes bunkers. Then he goes to the next tee box to change the tee position and fill divots. He is responsible for water coolers and ice chests and picks up pine cones and branches around tree beds.

“They will typically do four to five holes and don’t come back until 10 a.m.,” he says. “We don’t send out separate guys to do these individual operations.”

In another staff reorganization, detail crews complete six holes a day. One week they will do soft edging on bunkers and beds, and the next week they will do hard edging along cart paths, curbs, and tee and yardage stones. They make sure bunkers have a nice concave bottom so a golf ball gets to a location away from the slopes and doesn’t plug.

“We get the conditions we are expected to deliver because of the systematic approach to our maintenance,” Alex says. “Bunker faces are fly-mowed weekly and bunkers are raked every day. Greens are mowed daily, fairways are mowed every other day, and we get around roughs twice a week. This frequency ensures the courses play the same all the time and are very clean.”

E-Walk is the answer
Jacobsen’s whisper-quiet E-Walk all-electric walking greens mower joined the equipment roster a year ago to solve a guest services issue. Because of its other attractive features, five more were added to the fleet.

“Our practice putting green is 20 feet away from a series of villas,” Alex says. “People spend a considerable amount of money to stay here, and mowers waking them up at 5:30 a.m. wasn’t a good mix. For 20 years we didn’t mow the putting green until 8 a.m., and that wasn’t the greatest guest service for golfers. They want to putt on a freshly mowed green before they play. Instead, they putted in dew. So when the E-Walk was introduced we decided we should take a look at it.”

The E-Walk is unique among walking greens mowers because the frequency of clip is independent of the mower’s walk speed.

“This becomes another grooming feature,” Alex says. “We slow the walking speed way down and keep up the reel speed to increase clip frequency for a better surface. I like the fact that we can adjust those two speeds. We might not have the fastest greens mowing operation in the world, but it isn’t intended to be. We use the E-Walks on 30 holes. Operators take out two batteries and they mow three to four greens before switching out. We haven’t had any issues at all with this mower.”

The greens at Grand Cypress are double-cut six times a week, primarily with Jacobsen’s Greens King IV. The E-Walks are used four times a week.

“This is the only way we’ve found to get decent green speeds with poa trivialis,” Alex says. “We use a Greens King IV one time and then a mower with a turf groomer for the second cut. We’re trying to get the grass to stand upright for a good clip and also to reduce grain.”

When Jack Nicklaus acquired the property, there was basically an elevation change of 1 foot from one end to the other. His design includes several dramatic features.

Renovation program

Grand Cypress is studying a renovation project for greens, tees, fairways, irrigation, bulkheads and some cart paths. It is hoped that the four-year project will begin in a year or two.

“The grass on the greens needs to change,” Alex says. “It’s old Tifdwarf Bermuda grass, and after 15 years the mutations are pretty evident.

We’ve tested the profiles of the greens for organic matter and percolation rates. The results say we only have to amend the top 4 inches because of the heavy organics.”

Much of the credit for this goes to Alex’s topdressing program, which he has used for more than 20 years. The staff lightly topdresses every two weeks in summer and at three-week intervals in winter. The sand is similar to what was used to build the greens so there are no layering issues. Instead of a 12-inch profile, the greens have a profile ranging from 18 to 22 inches.

“When these greens were built, it wasn’t on the typical USGA specification,” Alex says. “We have no choker layer in our greens. Our greens mix sits on top of the drainage rock. The rock specifications were altered so we would not have any migration downward. Our testing concluded that we don’t have any migration, so we feel we can just remove 4 inches, tie everything off into the bunkers and features and replant.”

Course conditions are driving the project. Alex wants more consistent green speeds in summer.

“In winter our greens are mostly poa trivialis and rye-grass,” he explains. “We mask all the Bermuda grass. We double cut at 0.9 and can get them around 9.5 to 10.5, which is plenty fast for a resort. In summer with a newer dwarf or an ultradwarf — we haven’t decided which one we’ll be going with — we will be more consistent because we won’t have to work around mutations. When we mow really low, the mutations want to disappear. We’re managing more for mutations than base grass.”

Alex offers a gentle reminder to superintendents to take a step back from the pressures of regular course preparation and consider playability.

“Superintendents always have to ask themselves if their course is playable,” he says. “Is it firm and fast enough? Are the bunkers maintained so golfers can play out of them? Are the roughs at the right height to promote an enjoyable round of golf? Are you doing all the other things to make the golf course playable? Sometimes superintendents lose sight of that.”