Skip to content

Greenskeeper volunteers for U.S. Open

Golf Tournament

Jason Haines is going to the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay Golf Course in Tacoma, Wash. But Haines isn’t golfing. He’s one of about 130 volunteer greenskeepers who will be maintaining the course for the golf championship on June 18 to 21.

This is the first time that the U.S. Open is being held in the Pacific Northwest. The proximity to the Sunshine Coast is what made this feasible for Haines, who is the superintendent at Pender Harbour Golf Club.

“It’s the biggest golf tournament in the world, so it’s a pretty big deal,” he said.

The 130 volunteer greenskeepers – as well as the 40 or so employed by the Chambers Bay course – will begin on the Sunday before the tournament. This gives them four days to train and get habituated to their task, although the more complicated work will be left to the permanent groundskeepers on the course.

“All of the guys that are showing up, we’re all experts,” Haines said. “I’ve been in the industry for 14 years. Most guys have been in it for that long as well. We all get one specific task. One guy might be mowing just one tee box. That’s all he has to do for an entire week.”

Haines said he hasn’t been given his orders yet, but his job could be anything from running a mower to filling in divots, or raking sand traps.

“Because the course has no trees – only one tree on the property – everything has to be done before the TV cameras turn on,” Haines said. “That’s at 6 a.m. We start at 3 a.m. and finish at 6 a.m. And then we come in at 6 p.m. and work until 9 p.m. And we do that every day.”

Changing environmental and social climates have affected the United States Golf Association’s (USGA) policy for course greens. Vice-president of the Pender Harbour Golf Club, Lorne Campbell, said water conservation is becoming the newest trend.

“The USGA is trying to move away from the lush, heavily watered, heavily manicured golf courses because they’re now politically incorrect,” Campbell said. “They may soon even become illegal in many places, like Southern California.”

This new greens system started for the USGA at the U.S. Open last year in Pinehurst, N.C. Campbell described the new look of course greens as anything but green.

“It was scaled back tremendously from the lush country club it had been, and was actually returned to more of the look it had when it was built by Donald Ross, basically at the beginning of the last century,” Campbell said. “This is a leap into the unknown for the USGA. It will not look like any other U.S. Open that has been held, at least not in my lifetime.”

Just because excessive watering is going out of style doesn’t mean courses require any less work from superintendents like Haines. In fact, Campbell said that after too much heat early in the season and not enough moisture, Haines is leaving right when the Pender Harbour course needs him the most.

“While this is a nice summer for boaters and people selling ice cream,” Campbell said, “it’s extremely worrisome for people who seriously look after grounds. Especially on a golf course. The grass is on the brink of all dying.”

That didn’t stop Campbell from encouraging Haines to volunteer with the U.S. Open.

“In order to be in this industry you pretty much have to be a fanatic and really love what you’re doing,” Haines said. “The U.S. Open, it’s the first time it’s been to the Pacific Northwest, ever, so it’s not like I have an opportunity to work – or get experience – at this calibre of a tournament very often.”