The long and the short of it is, it’s bigger than before

By Alistair August 16, 2024 09:32

Billy McLachlan, course manager at Royal Troon, tells us about preparing for the greatest golf championship in the world – The Open 2024 – for the fourth time.

Royal Troon Golf Club, in Ayrshire, Scotland, is renowned as one of the greatest links courses and course manager Billy McLachlan has been at the helm for 31 years. Speaking six weeks before the first tee shot is hit in The Open, we hear about how he and his team prepared the course for the eyes of the world for the fourth time.

We had a wet autumn, followed by a wet winter and then a wet spring, how did that affect preparations?

It’s been a challenge but nothing like what we faced in 2016. At the time I’d never experienced anything like it and, thankfully, haven’t since. The amount of rain was unbelievable and there was so much flooding across the course. The water table was high and the rain, which didn’t stop falling from about November onwards, just kept adding to it.

How did it affect work?

We were pumping millions of gallons of water off the course non-stop for about six weeks.

We’d have to go on big detours around the course just to get from A to B because so much was impassable due to the water puddling. It was difficult and took so much time away from the team doing what they do best which is course preparations.

What’s different in 2024?

We came out the back of the 2016 tournament and set about improving the drainage. There was no way we were going to let nature at work prevent us from working as planned again.

Plus, we’ve had a new Toro irrigation system installed since the last time we hosted The Open, and it’s revolutionised the way we irrigate. We have 3,000 pop-up sprinklers across the two courses.

We can be proactive and reactive depending on weather conditions and can be so much more targeted and effective with our water usage since its installation and it will make life much easier throughout the tournament to have that level of precision and control, and ease of planning and use.

Weather conditions aside, how are preparations going for the 152nd championship?

It’s the tenth time The Open has been held here and my fourth time overseeing the course work. That does give you a lot of experience and it means you’ve come across most scenarios, but it doesn’t take away the long haul of work. Preparations have been two years in the making and a lot of people have put in a lot of hours and effort, for which we’re hugely grateful. With the team, the equipment and the years of planning, we’re in a good position – on schedule and fine tuning everything.

What can the players and viewers look forward to?

We have the longest hole in Open history, which is the sixth. It measures 623 yards – 22 more than at the 2016 Open. Then, just two holes after that, there’s the shortest hole in the championship’s history – our iconic par-three eighth, also known as the ‘Postage Stamp’.

There are nine new tees too which lengthened the overall course – I think we’re sitting just 36 yards fewer than the record at Carnoustie in 2007 – and the holes are at slightly different angles this time. There was extensive bunker work and we had three new bunkers on the first and sixth fairways and next to the sixth green, and there are new bunker positions too.

Speaking of challenges, what was the biggest one you faced when hosting a tournament like The Open?

Keeping everyone happy. As golf’s oldest and biggest event, there are a lot of stakeholders with a vested interest in it going well, and part of my job is trying to make sure we meet everyone’s needs. But at the end of the day, everything hinges around the course.

This year’s championship sold out, ensuring a record attendance of 250,000 – an increase of more than 70,000 people from the last time you hosted it in 2016, did that put pressure on?

Everything about the 2024 event is bigger than it was in 2016. The grandstands, catering facilities, temporary buildings, services, everything.

But the team is just fantastic. Some brought experience of three, or in some cases, four Open tournaments and seeing all that expertise come together is what it’s all about. There’s nothing quite like the build up to and working at an event like The Open – you can feel the atmosphere among the team; they work incredibly hard but there’s excitement behind it.

You do think ahead to the level of traffic coming onto the site – 50,000 people on and off the site every day on four consecutive days in what could be wet conditions has the potential to create a huge post-event clean up and recovery job so that’s always in the back of your mind – what’s coming next?!

What equipment have you been using for course preparations?

At the end of last year, we partnered with Reesink Scotland and Toro machinery. We’ve been using Toro machinery for years but felt the timing was right to make that level of commitment, especially in the run-up to and over the tournament.

We have a focus on using electric machinery and were extremely impressed with the Toro Greensmaster eTriFlex 3370 ride-on and Greensmaster e1021 pedestrian mowers, which will be taking care of the greens. Having all electric turfcare machinery is a new addition to our fleet at The Open and I’m looking forward to the huge benefits they will bring. For one, they will allow us to get out to any areas we need to without disturbing viewers or the flow of play and we know we can work all hours needed, because they are so quiet.

We included the Toro Reelmaster 3575 and Groundsmaster 4300 mowers for fairways and roughs respectively as well as mid and heavy-duty utility vehicles in the last delivery. We’ve been using

Toro for a long time and have a core fleet here which includes the ProCore 648s which will be instrumental in post-event recovery work.

To have the support of Reesink throughout the tournament will be vital. We will have additional models of the same machines we’ve been using coming in and extra technicians, which provides great peace of mind.

What role does sustainability play in the running of Royal Troon?

We’re doing more all the time. The next step is to add solar panels to our new shed to charge the mowers using our own generated energy. And we’re eagerly awaiting the next electric versions of our favourite machines – we’ll be first in line for a battery-powered fairway mower.