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RBC CANADIAN OPEN

July 22, 2008

OAKVILLE, ONTARIO

THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here today for the superintendent's presentation. Joining us today from the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association is president Bob Burroughs, who's also the course superintendent at Banff Springs Golf Club. Also joining us today is Mr. Ken Cousineau, who's the executive director of the CGSA. I will now turn the presentation formally over to Mr. Bob Burroughs.
BOB BURROUGHS: Thank you, Dan. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon representing all the members across Canada of the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association. We have with us today and we'll recognize shortly our superintendent at Glen Abbey here.
The CGSA represents almost 1,600 individuals across this great country who are involved in the profession of golf course management. The main focus of the CGSA is to provide education, certification, representation and communication services with the overall mission of improving the image of the superintendent and the understanding within the golf community of the importance of the role of the golf course superintendent.
Through development and the delivery of training programs and the development of our national occupational standards, the CGSA is working to ensure that superintendents are knowledgeable concerning the latest tools and techniques available to assist with environmental protection and consistent course conditioning and the ability to apply that knowledge in a responsible, effective manner.
Part of the ongoing efforts to recognize the importance of superintendents to the industry involves the presentation of our national tournament plaque to members that host an event such as this. The RBC Canadian Open is the most prestigious of our national tournaments, and it is my great pleasure to call upon Scott Bowman, superintendent of the Glen Abbey Golf Club, to accept our national tournament award.
As I said, on behalf of our 1,600 members from coast to coast, we recognize our superintendents who host these prestigious tournaments who contribute to the success of these events with their crews working long and hard and essentially preparing a golf course years in advance to host an event such as this. So Scott, from what I can tell, you've dealt with the weather. Congratulations to you and your team and all the best.
SCOTT BOWMAN: Thanks for having me. Thanks to the CGSA. It's a great honor. It's been a long week, but it's been a fun week, so thank you very much for the presentation.
I guess I started in early March, March 1st I started here at Glen Abbey, so it's been a whirlwind five months, four months, but the crew has been outstanding. I've got a great staff. They've worked nonstop from April 1st when the snow melted, and after Sunday, 110 millimeters of rain, four and a half inches, they have been nonstop working.
We worked Sunday -- we came in Sunday morning at 5:00, and the golf course was under water. Everyone returned at 2:00. The weather broke for about an hour, and we started to pump bunkers, put bunkers back together. We started to cut greens, and then the skies opened up again and put about another 40 mill on top of us.
We sent everybody home for the day, and we came back with a plan on Monday morning. 75 people showed up, 45 people alone in the bunkers, and we put the golf course back together and it was ready for play on Tuesday morning.
Hats off to my staff. They were unbelievable. Without them the golf course wouldn't be where it was today. My hats off to them, and the golf course is, I think, pretty good right now for the players.
Greens and fairways are probably a little soft, but that's kind of out of my control. But I think everything else from tee to green is great.
It definitely made the rough grow a little bit. It was four inches on Thursday. It probably got to eight inches by yesterday. It just shot out of the ground. We cut it yesterday and today. Hopefully it'll back off a little bit and we won't have to cut it again. But if we do, we do. We'll leave that up to the PGA TOUR.
I think the golf course is good. I think the players will enjoy it. They'll have some trouble in the rough. If they keep it in the fairway, though, they should be all right.

Q. Have you spoken to any of the players today and found out what their reaction is to the work that's been done?
SCOTT BOWMAN: I haven't spoken to any players. Some of my employees spoke to some caddies late last night as they were -- the caddies were allowed to walk the golf course yesterday even though the golf course was closed for play. They all seemed to think it was great. Unfortunately a lot of the players weren't here on Sunday and couldn't see how much water we really had. The 17th fairway from the 100-yard marker in to the green was four feet deep, and we double-cut that fairway last night. So it drained really well, and the players all think it's in great condition considering four and a half inches.

Q. Have you talked to the PGA TOUR yet about whether they'll be able to play the ball down, or are they going to play lift, clean and place?
SCOTT BOWMAN: There's been some talk. They're going to make that call, I think, right at the last possible minute. They take this championship, the RBC Canadian Open, very seriously as a national championship. It's the last thing they want. They want them to play the ball down.
Their interpretation of -- a player's interpretation of mud on the ball is different than mine, so we'll see what the players say in the next couple days and they'll talk it over with the rules official and we'll probably make that call Thursday morning.

Q. Just wondering, do you set up pieces of measuring equipment to measure the firmness in a green? And if you do, what is it and what would you like? I think it's something that in the last couple years championships have been using.
SCOTT BOWMAN: I forget the name of it, as well. We haven't used it. We have it here. It's something that I worked with the PGA TOUR agronomist. We haven't brought it out. They drained incredible. We obviously had them very mean and very dry leading into the rain, so they filled up and drained quite well, so we haven't used it. We do have it here if we need to, but I think he knows just by the firmness on the feet that they're pretty good.

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