Catalunya Championship, a top level DP World Tour tournament

Winners of DP World Tourplayers of Ryder Cupfrom MajorsThe Olympians are meeting this week on the emblematic route Course at PGA Catalunya Stadium to dispute Catalonia Championship, a DP World Tour tournament with 2 million dollars in prizes and a score for world ranking, which could open doors for the most important tournaments of the season, such as Majors and the Ryder Cup.

And to achieve a contest at this level, PGA Catalonia has worked hard in record time and the field work is led by David Bataller, Director of Agriculture of PGA Catalunya Golf and Wellness. “When they called us to say we were going to have the Catalunya Championship, it was a mixture of nervousness and emotion, because a tournament of this level requires a year of preparation and we only have 6 weeks; but they called us because at PGA Catalunya we always have very good standards, and it gives so little throttle that we can show it for this level. We have taken good care of the rough to have the best rough, and the rest we have kept in very good condition.

Players will find a completely different field. The resort has over 500 hectares, so it is very large and allows us to have very natural areas, lots of privacy between the holes because the design allows a large distance from the holes in the hole, and in it we cleaned the course a lot. , we have framing each hole in the style of the largest tournaments, with a high definition in the irrigation area with non-irrigation, well definition with pinnace that marks the area treated with the area that is forest, where all the native flora and fauna that we have in place. That’s a different style TPC Sawgrass and more Augusta, which is rarely seen in Europe.

Fairways are always maintained at standard tournament sizes, the player who goes to PGA Catalunyacome to experience a field tour because it was designed for there, for Ryder Cup. So the narrow street lines are consistent throughout the year; Furthermore, we have completely different grass on the fairway than the rough, so it may not vary due to the basic design. But this time we did the semi rough on the fairway, scaling them between 3 and 4 meters; on fairways of 20-25 meters this is very important, and I have heard some comments that the course is more difficult than before.

We feed it a lot, we just came back from weeks when it was very cold, in the Pyrenees there is still a lot of snow and that is what cools the night and the grass does not grow at maximum brightness, but now, and they will have thick which is rough, cut to the standard height of the DP World Tour, at 75mm, so for the weekend it will be 10mm.

This course has a high tee, so the ball spends more time flying, and in fact this week we will measure the flight of the ball on the 1st tee, a tee 15 meters above the fairway, and if how it will be quite windy, see if the ball moves or not, and if it is difficult to position it on the fairway.

In greens they need a speed of 11.5 because they like to work with complex and fun flags.

We were very excited about the contest, all the staff fully participated; We have a permanent greenkeeping team with 40 people working on the same course, and volunteers come from the area, and people from Portugal.

ANTONIO GARRIDO TO PRESENT COUP OF HONOR OF CATALUNYA CHAMPIONSIP

50 years ago, a very young Antonio Garrido won the first tournament where the European Tour began, and it was certainly in Gerona, where the DP World Tour returned 50 years later; It was the Spanish Open and it was played with Pals. To commemorate that moment and that victory, Antonio Garrido will deliver the coup de honor where the Catalunya Championship will begin next Thursday at 7:30 am at the PGA Catalunya Golf and Wellness.

We are lucky this week here Micah Woods, Chief Scientist of the Asian Turfgrass Center, an expert who goes to the Majors and the Ryder Cup to scientifically measure not only the speed of vegetables, but also the stability with humidity sensors, and we will examine how the stability of vegetables increases using the data. He studies us every day. And we’ll see how players, without this information, will adapt to the field.

Yesterday they played enough and they told us they really liked how the field was; We strive for it to be at the highest level ”.