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CANADIAN PACIFIC WOMEN'S OPEN

August 24, 2016

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We're joined in the media center today by James Beebe, superintendent of Priddis Greens Golf and Country Club as well as Dustin Zdan, superintendent for Connaught Golf Club and the Alberta director for Canadian Golf Superintendents Association of Canada.

We're going to get this started with some questions for James. James, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your preparations for tournament week here.

JAMES BEEBE: Thanks. I mean, really preparations for a national championship like this begin more than a year out, so a lot of the decisions that we make in regards to where we want the golf course playing this week sort of happen with aerification timing the year before, et cetera, making sure that the greens are firm and fast as we want to achieve those goals. So it starts a year out.

But the reality is the heavy lifting starts approximately five weeks out when Golf Canada comes into town. As far as preparation for building the structures that are out on the golf course, it's as much work as preparing the conditions of the golf course. We have corporate villages, bleachers. We've got all sorts of structures around the golf course, and that takes a significant amount of effort both on Golf Canada's part on the golf club's part.

There's a lot of conflict or interference with our golfers, our own members and our staff and the contractors, so it's juggling those things as well as preparing the golf course for the best players in the world that can be challenging.

Q. Are there any particular challenges that you've had to overcome this year in terms of weather or environmental issues here at the club?
JAMES BEEBE: Yeah, I think that most superintendents would say that weather is always one of their biggest challenges because it's just so uncertain, and if you're from Calgary, you know the old axiom is if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. It's always a challenge. But the summer of 2016 was I think the wettest summer we've had on record in almost 100 years, so in the month of July alone, we had 25 days of rain out of 31 days.

One of the biggest challenges was just being able to get the work done that you needed to do to prepare the golf course. Some of the simple things like topdressing greens on a regular basis, you can't do when it's wet, so it was trying to fit those practices, the verticutting, the topdressing, those kind of things in, in and around the wet weather, so that was a challenge. We were in early, staying late, coming in on days off. Just trying to fit those kind of things in was a real challenge.

And then again, the buildout, when you've got 15 or 20 forklifts with scaffolding driving around the golf course to build tents like the one we're in or the bleachers, when it's really wet out, those vehicles can create damage, and when the event is all said and done and everybody leaves, our members want their golf course back the way it was, so trying the protect the golf course was a challenge. But working in concert with all of the different contractors worked well so far, and I think we're going to achieve our goal.

Q. When we're done here this week, what do you want or what do you hope that players will say about Priddis Greens?
JAMES BEEBE: I hope they say they loved the golf course because it really is a beautiful setting and a great golf course. We hope they say it was a real strong test of golf but it was fair. Our goal is to have firm, fast greens and yet fair, so that a well-struck shot, the green receives a well-struck shot, and that the best players were the ones that were coming down to the wire and possibly had a chance to win the golf tournament.

Q. Now, environmental issues are always a big question or a big part of being a golf course superintendent. Is there anything specific that you guys are doing here that other clubs would consider best practice or even the CGSA?
JAMES BEEBE: Yeah, absolutely. Priddis Greens has always been in the forefront of environmental stewardship. We were one of the first golf courses in Canada certified through the Audubon International program, which is an environmental program for golf back in 1998, and we've been recognized internationally, nationally, and regionally for a lot of the environmental initiatives that we've done. So the club and the staff together take ownership of that. We're very proud of our facility and want to make sure that we're recognized for stewards of the land. We're very proactive and are always trying to put our best food forward in regards to environmental stewardship.

Q. I was curious about two things: One, the preparation that you do daily because you get out here in the middle of the night, and we'd like to know a little bit about what your team does to get the golf course prepared for Thursday, for Friday, for Saturday, for Sunday, and then the last part, I'm curious about the wildlife. We saw plenty of deer on your golf course. I saw an eagle here once. What else do you have hanging around out there? Is the Abominable Snowman here, too?
JAMES BEEBE: Those are good questions. I'll go back to the first question, which is what does our staff do to prepare the golf course. It's a busy week for our staff. Hosting a national championship like this does take a large staff. Often volunteers are required because you need a lot more people to maintain the golf course within the window of time that you have.

We're fortunate here that we have two golf courses, 36 holes, so we've got a large staff. We've got twice the staff that a normal golf course would have. So we have a large staff, so we're in every morning at 5:00 a.m., and our staff have to get out, we get in about an hour lead on the golfers, so they tee off -- our staff actually goes out in the dark at just before 6:00, and we go out and we mow greens, rake bunkers, mow tees, collars. We're out taking the dew off the fairways, fixing ball marks, all those kind of things. So we've got about 55 people out in the dark, starting in the dark in the morning, and then once play is completed at the end of the day, so today at 5:00 p.m. approximately, 5:30, our entire staff comes back and we'll have another 50 people come back out and redo it over again. We'll clean anything up, any damage that's been done out there. Depending on the green speeds, we'll mow greens again. We may roll. We're checking firmness of the golf course. We have meters that check firmness, and that will help us adjust our watering to make sure that the greens and the fairways are the exact moisture content that we have.

They're long days. Some of the guys here are here just before 5:00 a.m., and we usually leave in the evening after dark, 10:00, so 15-hour days kind of thing. But it's exciting. Lots of enthusiasm with so many people around and the best golfers in the world.

The other question was your wildlife question. Again, part of our environmental stewardship is wildlife habitat management, so we really do try and foster as much wildlife around the golf course as possible. As you said, there's a plethora of deer. They're very friendly. We feed them in the winter to keep them around and also to keep them off the fine turf areas so that they're not digging in around.

We have bears wander through, cougars wander through, coyotes, and then a lot of the small mammals, lots of birds, ravens, eagles, herons, all sorts of animals like that. There's always something to look at out here.

It's really very different than -- a different golf course and different golf club than most anything around Calgary. It's such a natural environment. We're only 15 minutes away, but it's almost like you're in the mountains.

Q. Players who were here in 2009 may not recognize the course because we're actually using a different course setup here. Is there anything different about the nine that we're using this week that players may have to look out for, or what should players be aware of?
JAMES BEEBE: I think the biggest difference playing the entire Raven golf course versus the hybrid course of the Hawk and the Raven is that the front nine Raven is tighter, so it's tree-lined and the trees are a little bit tighter to play, so they've got to thread the needle off the tee. It's going to be very important. There's more doglegs, tight doglegs where you have to pick your angle off the tee and hit the fairway on an angle.

The rough is pretty thick out there. We're cutting it at three inches and it's going to probably grow up to four plus, so picking your angles off the tee is going to be much more important I think to accuracy and who's strong enough to hit the ball out of the rough when they do miss is going to make the difference.

THE MODERATOR: Dustin, we're going to turn it over to you. I understand you have a special presentation for James.

DUSTIN ZDAN: Yeah, first of all, I'd like to thank Golf Canada and Canadian Pacific for allowing us to recognize one of our members today. The Canadian Golf Superintendents Association is actually celebrating our 50th anniversary this year, so with that, with part of that is we like to honor our members with a national tournament program where we recognize them at these prestigious events.

So James has kind of two hats. James is actually the president of the CGSA, and he's also obviously the golf course manager here at Priddis Greens Golf and Country Club. James has been a member of the CGSA since 1992 and has over 30 years of experience as a golf course manager.

He's won numerous awards. He did mention environmentally. He won the CGSA Environmental Award. He's won the Golf Digest Environmental Leadership Award, and he's also won -- or been presented with the AGSA's Distinguished Service Award. So James has been around, obviously.

With that, we're pretty happy to honor James today with his national tournament plaque in recognition for the job that him and his staff are doing this week and going forward for the next five or six days, whatever you've got left. On behalf of the CGSA, we want to congratulate James for a great week.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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