After my tour of Royal New Kent, the Superintendent, Mathieu LeCompte was very gracious with his time and participated in an email interview. I'll add some notes on some questions, anything I write will be noted with [Brackets].
1. How much Green space do you have?
We currently have just over 4 acres of greens which includes a small nursery green that was built at the golf maintenance facility during the greens renovation.
[The new greens are fantastic. In general, the greens here are very large. Some are 70 yards deep, others 60 yards wide. One green is roughly 13,000 square feet by my rough calculations. These are a truly impressive set of greens.]
2. How much Fairway space do you have?
We have roughly 50 acres of fairway.
[Same with the greens, Mike Strantz was known for scale. Some fairways are close to 100 yards wide in certain points.]
3. How many irrigation heads?
There are roughly 1500 irrigation heads on property. (Some of which have not run in quite some time)
4. What was the condition of the irrigation system when you took over in June? How much work has been done since then?
My first day on the job was spent replacing 20’ of a 12” main irrigation line with Willie [Downs, the site foreman] and a fellow Superintendent from down the road. Things could only go up from there I suppose. We have seen the typical pipe breaks and control issues of a 20 year old system but the club is scheduled to upgrade our central irrigation computer, satellite controllers, and several irrigation heads this fall. That will greatly reduce many of the issues that we have encountered this summer.
5. What was the most difficult part of growing in the new Champion greens?
Time was certainly the biggest challenge. When I began mid-June we had no grass on the greens, no equipment to prepare a surface onto which we could sprig, no control of a few of our greens’ irrigation heads, and no employees to help get us where we needed to be by mid-July.
[I was stunned by the quality of the greens in early October 2018. They were in absolutely fantastic condition. Mat and the staff did an incredible job with this.]
Thanks to several kind hearted superintendents, one of the best mechanics that I know who somehow pieced together what was left of the equipment left behind by previous owners, and a handful of individuals that had no golf experience but were up for a few 14+ hour days while restoring this property, we managed to have greens somewhat put together when the sprigs rolled into town.
6. Aside from being 10-12 inches tall, how healthy was the fairway turf when you took over?
The turf itself was relatively healthy. There was a fair amount of spring dead spot and a good amount of weeds but the grass plants that were here were tall, green, and happy.
7. Willie Downs told me that the drainage system was damaged. How much work is required for that to be fully functional?
The drainage system is certainly one of our big issues and sadly one that many recent golfers will remember. We are in the process of correcting 100+ drain breaks that have caused sink holes throughout our fairways and rough.
[In the previous video, large patches of high weeds, 3-4 feet tall in some cases, could be seen in the fairways. These weeds were growing in/around the malfunctioning drainage pipes. I saw one of the pipes that had been partially unearthed, one of the reasons for the malfunctions was that originally the pipes were laid down and simply bent upwards to the drain grate. This caused failures in the pipes over the years. As I was told, when they're rebuilt, it will be done with elbow joints in the ground rather than bending the pipe.]
8. I noticed some patches of zoysia encroachment in the fairways. What are your plans for that?
Both zoysia and bermudagrass have proven to provide outstanding playing surfaces for some of golf’s biggest events. At this point, we plan to maintain both grasses in our fairways, understanding that in any given microclimate one grass will prove itself better suited for healthy growth. Achieving full coverage of quality playing surfaces is our top priority.
9. Where would you like to see the course, in terms of turf health and maintenance, in one year?
I see the course in great playing condition by the time that we open in the spring of 2019 and continuously improving. If the guys of this maintenance team continue to put forth the effort and excitement that they have shown, this place will truly be something special.
Thanks for participating Mat. When I played the course 8 years ago, I found it to be an incredible place even then. That was with some already degraded conditions. With the money being spent to improve the course and the fantastic staff in place, I think this course will take a place among the elite courses in Virginia.
