This week the PGA Tour returns to Turning Stone Resort’s Atunyote Golf Club in Verona, N.Y., for the first event of the Fall Series, the Turning Stone Resort Championship. It has been such a cool, wet summer that GCSAA Class A member Matt Falvo, senior superintendent of golf and grounds, has not used the irrigation system in more than a month.
Two consecutive dry weeks in September allowed the course to soak up another 1½ inches of rain early in the week and remain relatively firm. The bentgrass greens are rolling 12 feet on the Stimpmeter and should continue to firm up as the tournament progresses, if the rain stays away, and even more so if the wind picks up. The four-inch Kentucky bluegrass/perennial ryegrass/fescue rough is thicker than usual, due to the abundance of rain this summer, but there have been no changes made to the golf course otherwise.
There is no hole that is widely agreed upon as the signature hole at Atunyote, but Falvo points to No. 13, a 410-yard par 4, as a make-or-break point in each round this week. A stiff cross wind usually adds difficulty to a hole that already ranked as the toughest, due to a greenside water feature.
Grass type: | |
Weather: Highs around 60 and off-and-on showers are expected all week. But then again, it is autumn in New York. | |
Yardage: 7,482 yards, par 72 | |
Fun fact: Atunyote Golf Club is one of only two Tom Fazio designs in New York state (Oyster Bay Town Golf Course). |