How Pinehurst No. 2 Gets U.S. Open Ready | Super Secrets

Just 12 days before fans and players arrive for the U.S. Open, Pinehurst No. 2 closes to resort guests. We spend the day with Superintendent John Jeffreys, who details all the little things that makes an already difficult Top 100 Course into a test for the best in the world. From its 117 bunkers to lightning-fast crowned greens, Pinehurst No. 2 will pose a challenge for players and an amazing experience for the rest of us, thanks to the work of Pinehurst’s grounds team.
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it’s the best office in the world being on the golf course before the golfers get there seeing the sunrise and you know you’re excited you’re exhausted you’re adrenaline’s pumping but uh it’s just a different schedule but it’s an unbelievable week so it’s it’s worth all the the stress and the lack of sleep all right good morning guys we are closed today it’s our first day closed so we are closed until they open we we can still be efficient but take a little extra time on everything we’re doing be careful of everything this morning we’re going to we top dress yesterday we’re going to roll greens you guys will have blowers to blow out the greens mowing Fairways this morning we’re going to mow 3 to n okay side to side so two clean up laps around three point turns moisture meter H2O side prep JT you’re going to tractor blow this morning checking bunker death this morning we are going to widen some of our walkways that walk down the te we’re going to start on whole five take your time all right normal morning for us would be maybe 20 or 22 people and then for the US Open is 120 so it’s like man if we had this many people every day it’ be so nice so we’re going to go check on the mowers the roll rers as they head out um like we said they we’re closed today so it’s a little bit slower paced but more detailed um we don’t have golfers that we’re trying to stay ahead of really focused on the smallest details it’s amazing the production that goes into the US Open you know the Super Bowl is played in the stadium everything’s in the stadium you know this is golf this is a super bowl for golf this is you know building the arena you know usually you come up the 18th hole it’s nice and peaceful and you’ve got the clubhouse behind it now you’ve got this huge structure down both sides and for a golfer coming of the 18th with a chance to win the US Open in that environment it’s got to be a good feeling so one thing we do routinely but something we have to address before the championship is making sure all our bunkers have a uniform depth of sand in the bottom they’re more natural bunkers than most places so there is a rugged edge and a rugged feel but they do need to play somewhat consistent uh water will move the sand through wind will move the sand out so we just have to go through and make sure that our our depths of sand are uniform across the bottoms um obviously we’re not edging them or or doing any real hard sharp edging but just making sure the playing characteris istics of the bunkers are what we need them to be for the championship so something that’ll take us a good five or 6 days to go through all7 bunkers that we [Music] have the thing that’ll catch you first is we don’t have rough we don’t have tall Bermuda grass so if you just look at the course you’ll see the Sandy Wire Grass areas and most courses don’t have that most courses have Fairway grass and then like an intermediate cut then rough and then tree line where we just have the Fairway grass and then the Sandy wire grass so we don’t have rough mowers we don’t have intermediate mowers it’s you know we’re mowing greens and everything else which is unique the architecture of our greens is a little different than most where they’re elevated and Crown and have falloffs on all sides so that’s unique to Pine HST as well so to get the greens from what we call normal Pace up to Championship speed is increasing the frequency of the mow just mowing more um we double mow most mornings anyway but then we’ll turn around and do some mowing in the evening of the greens so instead of just mowing a double in the morning we’ll also do some doubles in the evening um we won’t irrigate as much overhead we’ll do a lot more hand watering to try to get the uniformity of the firmness and then really treating each green as its own green instead of 18 greens so the first green may need a double Mo the second green may only need a single just trying to get the consistency from green to Green a lot tighter um we’ve top dressed yesterday afternoon we’re rolling this morning just a lot of little practices that we’ve become comfortable with and have documented the results over several years so that when they ask the question of us what will we do we’ll have the answer the usj ask us what do we need to do to get the greens of the speed we’ve got some answers for them so one thing that we’re doing different today that we don’t normally do is we’re mowing Fairways what we call 3 to9 so sideways and that helps us just tighten up the turf by not mowing the normal direction if you want to go the fastest way point A to point B straight line that’s definitely not a straight line but it what it does is it allows us to tighten up the fairways just mowing a direction they’re not used to it really tightens up the the grass and so we’ll do that a couple times between now and the championship and we go into our routine what we call Shadow mowing where you go down one side and back up the other so we’ll come out and we’ll check make sure the fairways units are cutting properly like I said his fuel caps on is not got any leaks any issues and and check each of the mowers to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to it’s got to be mistake free we got to get through that in complete morning lineup 2 hours 45 minutes and it’s got to be perfect we’ll start at 4:00 the greens Motors might start a little bit before that and we’ll clear the course by 645 and now we’re blessed with the uh the US Open cuz they’ll be teeing off both sides now that’s nothing new for us being at the resort we’re first and 10 daily we’ll have Fairway units on the front Fairway units on the back and you know we’ll just kind of go through it and it’s like nine holes and you’ll Blitz through it in 2 hours 45 minutes and it’ll be over all this work leading up to it and it’s going to go by so quickly like all this infrastructure all these tents all the work that we’ve put in the team and it’s going to be gone in seven days and then thankfully they’ll come back in 5 years for a double um and hopefully I’ll be around for that one too so this is normally the 18th te of course for but for the championship is our 12th T so if you look down that way it just shows you the perspective for how much farther these players hit it than what normal humans hit it um we RT is up there on the left where the sign is that’s mere mortal golfers play from up there so this is the T for the 12th hole which is interesting that it’s the 18th T of course 4 all right thank you yeah so this will be the main entrance so this is asphalt that was put down last week and been painted red to look like brick and then they’ll get some sand in the cracks to make it look like mortar but down there at the other end where the pedestrian crossing sign is that’ll be the main entrance probably the coolest thing is we’ve moved the Payne Stewart statue from behind 18 and the statue will be down there at the entrance so people will see pain Stewart when they come in you know a lot of people see the production of the US Open inside the ropes but this is a lot of the stress or the headache is putting all this back afterwards this again has to be an Fairway of course one so looking at all these tents and pavement structures um these are the things that it’s not over for us when the champion makes the putt on 18 a lot of our work is just beginning to get everything back to back to normal you know I I would say they’re the unsung heroes uh of the tournament you know a lot of our team members put in a lot lot of hours there’s a lot of overtime there’s a lot of things to do so the sacrifices that you might make personally whether it be time away from the family you know missing certain events you know those are the sacrifices that go into producing a championship quality course and for that not to be forgotten [Music]