Superintendent Preps U.S. Women's Open Course

The USGA will hold the 62nd U.S. Women's Open Championship June 26-29 at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn., where Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) Class A superintendent Matt Rostal has prepared a tough but fair test.

While Rostal and staff have been preparing Interlachen for this event for years, the greatest changes to the course have come within the last two weeks, as warm weather finally reached the Land of 10,000 Lakes, causing an explosion in grass growth. Below average temperatures this spring followed a long winter, placing the rough heights ordered by the USGA behind schedule. Rostal, with an assist from Mother Nature, had Interlachen caught up by the end of May, as the first cut (11 feet wide) of bentgrass/bluegrass/ryegrass rough is 3½- to 4-inches tall, with up to 5-inch rough beyond that.

"We finally got some warm weather these last few weeks," said Rostal. "It's just been an unusually cool spring this year and things just weren't growing. With some rain and some warmer temperatures these last few weeks though, the rough really sprang to life. The graduated rough is right where the USGA wants it. The greens are in fantastic shape. We dodged some bullets with the recent storms lately, just missing some hail and a tornado last month."

Rostal is a 12-year GCSAA member and has been at Interlachen for 18 years. He was an intern from the University of Minnesota during the setup for the Walker Cup matches at the club in 1993, became the head superintendent in 2001 and a year later prepped for the 2002 Solheim Cup.

He has worked with the USGA to narrow most of the fairways, complete a full bunker renovation, including some new bunker locations, and lengthened No. 17, a par-4 dogleg that is probably the hardest hole on the course, to 445 yards. The U.S. Women's Open competitors who played Interlachen during the Solheim Cup matches will see a longer and tougher layout this time around. In all, the course will be the longest in U.S. Women's Open history, just under 6,800 yards.

Interlachen Country Club was designed and built by William Watson in 1911, redesigned by Donald Ross in 1919 and touched up by Robert Trent Jones in the early '60s. It has had a storied past, hosting the 1930 U.S. Open, won by Bobby Jones en route to his historic grand slam that year, and the 1935 Women's National Amateur, which introduced Interlachen's own, Patty Berg, to national golf, as the 17-year-old redhead took second place. Interlachen also was scheduled to host the 1942 U.S. Open, but it was canceled because of World War II. Built on three farms outside of Minneapolis along the streetcar line from downtown, Interlachen has also played host to the 2002 Solheim Cup, 1993 Walker Cup, 1986 Senior Amateur, 1916 Trans-Mississippi and the 1914 Western Open.