RBC CANADIAN OPEN

June 9, 2023

John McLinden

Patrick Greenman

Oakdale Golf & Country Club

Quick Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the media center. Certainly a special presentation for the RBC Canadian Open, one that we are very proud to do in partnership with the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association. Please welcome John McLinden, who is with the Ladies Golf Club of Toronto, who is also the vice president of the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association, for a special presentation to Patrick Greenman, our director of property management here at Oakdale Golf and Country Club. John.

JOHN McLINDEN: Thanks very much, Dan. First of all, I would like to thank Golf Canada and RBC for this opportunity to honor one of our members today. Typically, our president makes it to this tournament, but unfortunately he's out in Edmonton right now and he's monitoring some wildfires and putting a new irrigation system in. So he send his regrets today. I think he's a little busy as well. The Canadian Golf Superintendents Association represents over 1,000 individuals at the national level across Canada. Our mandate is to support and promote the profession and to provide education and research resources for golf course superintendents.

As part of the ongoing effort to recognize the role of the superintendent at the golf facility the CGSA sponsors a national tournament program for members that host these prestigious events. Our members are an essential part of the team that ensures that the golf course provides fair and consistent conditions for competition.

I would like to talk about Patrick here, who is our guest of honor. I'm sure is it safe to say you started planning for this about two years ago, is that right? Maybe longer.

PATRICK GREENMAN: Yeah, that's correct. A couple years ago when we found out that Oakdale was going to host, for sure.

JOHN McLINDEN: Patrick is a director of property management here at Oakdale Golf Club and is hosting this event. He has been a CGSA member since 1997, has been in the golf course industry for over 25 years. Two and a half years of which have been at Oakdale. It is my distinct pleasure to call upon Patrick to accept this CGSA National Tournament Award in recognition of his efforts for hosting the RBC Canadian Open.

Patrick, I know you've been through a lot, but congratulations to all your staff and yourself for providing these outstanding conditions.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Maybe just a comment on receiving this award and just general preparation for this championship and how has it gone so far.

PATRICK GREENMAN: Yeah, it's gone really well. It has been a couple years worth of process to get to this point. Doesn't all come together just simple and quick. It was, there was a lot of planning going on, a lot of work down the road to or in the past to get this all ready to go. But lots of good support from the industry. I can't tell you how proud I am of the industry that we're a part of. Because we couldn't put this product out there on the golf course right now if it wasn't for the support of the CGSA members that have come out to help volunteer this week to really help us put a nice product out there for the golfers today.

THE MODERATOR: Now, to receive an award like this from your peers certainly means quite a bit. What does it mean as a member of the CGSA to receive this award on behalf of the association, certainly something that is a special moment?

PATRICK GREENMAN: The CGSA has been so supportive through the years, being part of their, being a member there. All the educational stuff that we've done in the past and all the support for all the different superintendents and so on. It's a great association to be part of and it's a small-knit group, too. Like, we're a small family that we know we can all always count on each other to work through anything that might come up out on the golf course.

THE MODERATOR: Now in terms of agronomy, best practices, things you may have learned along the way working with the PGA TOUR, Golf Canada, maybe share some of those insights of how have you taken this experience and it's going to make you better going forward.

PATRICK GREENMAN: The PGA was always a great resource as soon as we found out that Oakdale was going to host. They were on-site right away and more supportive to everything that we were already doing or what we were planning on doing. Just giving you that extra push in the right direction culturally to set yourself up to have the conditions that we have today. Doesn't happen overnight. It takes years to manipulate the growing environments and get the strong healthy turf out there that can handle like the heat that we had last week and now we got the rain today. So that conditions don't change that much. Extra drainage and all the extra work that we've done really all comes together and the PGA was great support to push us in the right direction to get all that ready for what we're doing. And it's going to be nothing but a benefit to Oakdale in the future. All these practices that we've been doing, it's setting us up moving forward for Oakdale members to enjoy an even better product out on the golf course. It's brought a new normal moving forward for Oakdale.

THE MODERATOR: We'll turn it over to any questions either from journalists here. I know we have a lot of friends and colleagues that if you have any questions for Patrick in terms of his experience, feel free to raise your hand, we'll bring a microphone over.

Q. You took this over this project over during COVID. Like, this is one of the unique things I think about it. What were the challenges of trying to do this with facing those uncertainties that you had at the time?

PATRICK GREENMAN: I think staffing's probably always been a challenge. And to add COVID to that mix it really stretched us trying to adapt to what COVID had brought. We were still able to do all the product, I mean, all the processes and stuff out on the golf course and get it ready. But just the work forces and stuff like that, it was a challenge, for sure, to get ready.

Q. You talked a little bit about turf conditions out there. What's the golf course playing like right now? How is it different like what your members have played leading up to or what they're going to be playing once this is all packed up and gone away?

PATRICK GREENMAN: Yeah, it's hard not to talk about the rough when you think about turf, the conditions out there that these guys are playing. Our members certainly had to challenge themselves at the start of the season. Finding their ball out there was certainly a challenge. It was nice and thick and strong. That was probably the most significant difference that we have. The greens themselves are rolling pretty similar to what we normally would hope to get on a daily basis. The good thing about having the support and the volunteers and the extra staffing that we had this year is it made it a lot easier to make that a consistent condition. Make the greens roll the same last week, this week, today, tomorrow. We can adapt into the weekend to make sure that conditions don't change drastically, even though we've got this wet weather. We'll do what we have to do to make sure conditions stay good throughout the weekend.

THE MODERATOR: Any other questions or comments from anybody here in the room? Well, Patrick, thank you very much. On behalf of Golf Canada, the PGA TOUR, RBC, terrific job to yourself, your team, all the volunteers that helped. Thank you very much and congratulations again.

(Applause.)

PATRICK GREENMAN: If I can just add one thing. I would like to thank my senior management team and all my staff and volunteers. The senior management team has been very supportive through the last couple years and all the challenges that we may have come across. They have been great support through all of this. My staff and my volunteers have really helped us push this through this week. Early mornings, late nights and we got a few more days to go, which is great. We're having a great time out there. It's going to nothing but benefit Oakdale down the road, for sure. Thank you.

(Applause.)