Nate, Mike and I are on a split shift. We arrive at the course at 4:15 AM and head out to rake the bunkers (or in Nates case to mow intermediate rough.) After breakfast around 9 AM we are sometimes free to return to our hotel in Lucan until returning to the course at 4 PM for an early evening session of divoting.

Loading up divot mix.

On Tuesday we had a relatively easy day of divoting as we were only repairing divots from the relatively few number of pros who were practicing Monday and Tuesday. Naturally they focus most of their preparation on the greens. Since most pros hit the ball about the same length off the tee we needed to only look for divots in a strip of about twenty to thirty yards in their typical landing area. While we did a full sweep of each fairway, that small area held most of the divots needing repair.

Wednesday brought the Pro-Am and the host of amateur players. It was also a much larger field than either the full field of the tournament or the post-cut field. Not only were there many more divots but they were scattered up and down the fairways and even in the first cut of rough. 

We had a larger divoting crew last night but collecting the pelts and filling in the divots still took much longer than anticipated. We didnt arrive back at the hotel until nearly 10 PM but we knew our work was critical since television coverage started the next day.

Collected pelts without a home to replace them in.

I often hear about the challenges superintendents face keeping their crews motivated when their staffs are faced with repetitive tasks. I now know first hand how monotonous some of those tasks can be.