Cog Hill ready for BMW after brutal summer
If the nonstop days featuring temperatures in the 90s with soaring humidity have been unbearable for you, just think how it has affected local golf courses.
In a word, brutal.
That's why at Cog Hill Golf and Country Club, course superintendent Ken Lapp and PGA Tour agronomy director Paul Vermeulen are smiling a bit more these days as they welcome some fall-like conditions this week in preparation for the BMW Championship.
"We were fortunate to close two weeks prior to the tournament to heal from some of the stress caused by the weather this summer," said Lapp, who has hosted 19 PGA Tour events and four USGA championships at Cog Hill. "This was probably the worst summer we've had since '95.
"It was just unending heat and humidity. We'd get 3 inches of rain and then immediately it would be 95 degrees through the night again. Some of the greens are barely a year old and take longer to recover, as they are still maturing. But we're in great shape now and the forecast looks good for the week."
Lapp, 74, is a 47-year member of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA). He has been a superintendent for 55 years, including the last 37 at Cog Hill, following an 18-year stint as superintendent at Fresh Meadows Golf Course in Hillside.
"Due to the elevated heat and humidity this summer, preparing the Dubsdread course has been especially demanding," Vermeulen said. "Nonetheless, Ken Lapp has all areas of the course well-conditioned for the season-ending playoffs by drawing on his 50-plus years of experience maintaining high level facilities in the Chicago district."
Lapp has the large, undulating bentgrass greens at the par-71, 7,386-yard Dubsdread rolling 101/2-11 feet on the Stimpmeter. The Kentucky bluegrass rough is 3 inches tall at Dubsdread, which reopened the spring of 2009 after a $5.2-million renovation was completed - a project led by Rees Jones that began after Cog Hill hosted the 2007 BMW Championship.
Changes included the reconstructing of all greens and tee complexes, reshaping the fairways, a new risk-reward pond on No. 7, significant tree management, the repositioning and sculpting of all 98 bunkers, a new irrigation system, additional drainage and SubAir aeration and moisture removal systems that were installed on all 19 greens (including the practice green).