CP Women's Open BEFORE THE FIRST BALL DROPS 18th Green, Magna Golf Club.
Written by and photos courtesy of, Kendra Kiss, Spray Technician & Administrative Assistant, Magna Golf Club
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any superintendents dream of hosting a Professional Golf Tournament, but few actually get the chance to. On July 2018 the dream became a reality for superintendent Wayne Rath, and his team when Magna Golf Club was selected to host the 2019 CP Canadian Women’s Open. The inception of the Women’s Open began in 1973 at Montreal Municipal Golf Club where Canadian Jocelyne Bourassa claimed victory. For the next six years it continued to play in a 54 hole format, changing to a four round 72 hole tournament in 1979. In 2001, it was replaced in the LPGA’s roster of major tournaments by the Women’s British Open. However, with a $2.25 million (US) purse it remains among the highest on the LPGA tour. Which means, it’s a bit of a big deal. The turf crew was very receptive and enthusiastic about the idea of hosting an event that would be televised worldwide, and there was a tremendous amount of excitement in the clubhouse during the press conference.
From that moment on, preparations for the event began. For superintendent Rath and his team, the preparations for this huge event began in the fall of 2018. An aggressive snow mould program and dormant fertilizer applications to the rough were put into place. Equipment that is normally stored in the yard during the season was given a new home in our newly constructed shipping containers and hoop house located at the back of the property which provided shelter for our tractors and made room for Golf Canada and their shipping containers come tournament time. As the spring of 2019 arrived, many of courses across Ontario, including Magna GC, struggled with all the rain that mother nature could dish out. It was definitely a slow start to the season and the rough had a tough time waking up. Thanks to weather conditions, we couldn’t finish aerating and putting down the dormant application of fertilizer as scheduled. However, once conditions allowed, we were on the course aggressively spraying 46-0-0/Kelp/black iron and spreading slow release granular. The effort paid off because the rough made
a dominant recovery and was as thick as ever. The maintenance staff at Magna Golf Club consists of 43 seasonal staff and eight full time staff. The 4 acres of green surface are SR1119/Providence blend bentgrass. There are 32 acres of fairways, five acres of tees and 28,000 sq. meters of bunkers. Next to the weather, one of our biggest challenges was getting all 96 of our 20+ year old bunkers in tournament conditions. The old sand and aging drainage have impacted about 15% of our bunkers during the past year. We assembled a strong crew to remove contaminated sand, replace and insure proper uniform depth throughout each bunker. This was a monumental task given the vast size of our bunkers. The crew worked tirelessly even with the threat that mother nature could erase hours of work in 20 minutes with one good downpour. Throughout the season, we cut the rough at 2 ¾” and then two weeks before the tournament the LPGA asked us to raise the cutting height to 3”. Needless to say, one of the biggest defenses the course had during the tournament was the rough. The set-up of viewing structures began in the last week of July. It was something
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2019-09-09 10:46 AM