The U.S. Women’s Open is making its first visit to storied Pebble Beach Golf Links this week, and a dedicated crew of full-time staff and volunteers — a group that includes 35 women turfgrass professionals — are on hand to prepare the
course for all the action. Here’s how it looked inside the ropes and inside the maintenance facility on Tuesday and Wednesday of championship week.
Fairway mowers tackling the left side of Pebble Beach’s famed 18th hole on Tuesday morning. Crews are alternating directions when it comes to cutting fairways — green to tee on day, tee to green the next. Photos by Scott Hollister
No detail is too small in preparing for a major championship at Pebble Beach. Volunteers Delphine Tseng (left) and Molly Biggs are hand rolling the intermediate cut along the 18th fairway.
In addition to their work on the golf course this week, the women turf professionals assembled here are getting a daily dose of education too. Syngenta’s Kimberly Gard introduces Tuesday’s session, which focused on sustainability and environmental management techniques.
During the first three days of practice rounds at the U.S. Women’s Open, the maintenance team was able to roll out in force at 5 p.m. Here, they’re staged and ready to go minutes before heading out on Tuesday afternoon.
Despite a stubborn marine layer and daily temperatures that haven’t risen much past 60 degrees, hand watering of fairways has been a regular occurrence this week. Here, the upper part of the fairway on the sixth hole gets some attention.
A new hole location for the par-5 sixth hole on Wednesday morning. That’s volunteer Sally Jones, the general manager and superintendent at Benson (Minn.) Golf Club on the right.
The Fourth of July at the U.S. Women’s Open was commemorated by a flyover by a trio of naval aircraft — an F-18 Super Hornet, a V-22 Osprey and an MH-60S Sea Hawk — piloted by an all-women crew. On Wednesday, those naval aviators came to the maintenance facility to meet the women turfgrass professionals working this week. That’s Bubba Wright, Pebble Beach superintendent, in the center meeting the pilots.
Scott Hollister is the editor-in-chief of GCM