What do Augusta National Golf Club and the Rose Bowl have in common? Each is widely regarded as having the finest playing surface for its respective marquee event.

The greens at Augusta during the Masters Tournament are the envy of golfers everywhere and the bane of golf course superintendents. The playing surface for the Rose Bowl Game is regarded as the finest in college football and has been dubbed "The World's Most Famous Field."

Although many superintendents have prepped at Augusta National through the years, the inner workings there are, for the most part, as much a mystery as who killed Jimmy Hoffa. At the Rose Bowl, field superintendent Will Schnell manages the field like a really large putting green. Unlike Augusta, the secrets at the Rose Bowl are not so tightly guarded. Between now and the New Year's Day game between Oregon and Wisconsin, TurfNet will provide readers with an up-close-and-personal look behind the scenes about what goes on in preparing the field for the game that the late, great Keith Jackson nicknamed "The Granddaddy of Them All."

Thanks to support from our friends at Brandt, co-sponsors of our TurfNet University webinar program, TurfNet news and education director John Reitman will be on the ground in Southern California from Dec. 27 through the game on New Year's Day volunteering on Schnell's team and blogging about the experience. Brandt is a trusted Rose Bowl partner, helping Schnell produce Masters-like conditions for college football's oldest postseason bowl game.

TurfNet getting on the field at the Rose Bowl is the biggest upset in Pasadena since 11th-ranked UCLA shocked Woody Hayes and his No. 1-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes 23-10 in 1976. 

During the week, I'll share some of what goes on behind the scenes to prepare the field and talk to some of the personalities involved in making it all happen. We'll also visit some significant sites around the area, including adjacent Brookside Golf Course and what superintendent George Winters and his team do several times a year to convert it into a gameday parking lot, as well as historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which is home to the USC Trojans football team and twice has been a venue for the Olympic Summer Games (1932, 1984). My daughter, Lauren, will serve as my assistant and social media director for the week. Who better to handle Twitter and Instagram and help produce video than a college student?

We will be posting to the blog on TurfNet, photos to Instagram and producing a couple of videos along the way. In the meantime, check back as we share more about the history of the Rose Bowl and the games and people that have made the game and the stadium such an integral part of the American sports landscape.