The 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur was a homecoming for me. I lived and worked in Richmond, Virginia, for most of my life and consider it home for many reasons. Over the course of a week last month, I got to see some of my favorite people in the world, both professionally and personally, as I worked the championship at Independence Golf Club in Midlothian, Virginia.
Independence is where I was based during my time working for Virginia Tech and I have always been impressed by their people. Director of golf course maintenance Dan Taylor, along with superintendent Connor McNeer and their small team produce an excellent product – and much of that is due to innovative thinking. Co-owner and president, Giff Breed, and Independence have been adopters of technology and have embraced their research relationship with Virginia Tech. I feel fortunate to have worked with these gentlemen. From illuminating the practice facility using 250,000-lumen drones in the pre-dawn hours to donating about half the produce from their farm-to-table garden to the needy, the forward-thinking culture at Independence is evident everywhere.
Independence has also used ultradwarf bermudagrass on their putting greens for the last 10 years and the 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur may be the first USGA championship played on both ultradwarf and creeping bentgrass putting greens. Match play was at Kinloch Golf Club where superintendent Trevor Hedgepeth and his team manage wall-to-wall cool-season playing surfaces at a very high level. Kinloch Golf Club, located just west of Richmond, has been near the top of many lists for many years in Virginia, and a large portion of the credit for that should go to the course conditioning. It has been said that we can grow every kind of turfgrass in Virginia, we just can’t grow any of them well. Dan and Trevor beg to differ.
Innovation does not always include brand new technology but it should include listening to your customers and working toward an optimized golf experience. Our team at the USGA has been encouraging courses to be thoughtful about where they place forward tees and how they are presented for quite some time and I advocate for those concepts often. Independence has embraced this, and I hope you can learn something from the forward tee model they use that is described below.
- Forward teeing grounds have been located to eliminate forced carries and allow players with slower swing speeds to play the golf holes as intended.
- These forward tees total 4,000 yards and are positioned on the intended line of play.
- The course uses one marker for each tee location and uses nontraditional colors to reduce stigmas around tee selection. Two tee markers are used for championships but are unnecessary for daily play.
- They also don’t have markers on the back tees during daily play. If you want to go back there, feel free to play the plates. Numerous tee markers are a pain to manage so why do we need so many? Removing these back tees also encourages golfers to play the appropriate tees for their swing speed.
Based on the success of the forward tee program at Independence, my conclusion is that most golf courses don’t need more than four sets of tees ranging from 4,000 to 6,500 yards. Therefore, it may be worth evaluating your current tee marker setup. Can you eliminate a tee marker or use unique colors or designs to help decrease the stigmas around tee selection? Are there plates that you can install for back tees or forward tees to eliminate the need for tee markers? Encouraging golfers to choose a tee that fits their game should be every course’s goal. It will improve scoring, pace of play and make the game more welcoming.
The incorporation of many forward-thinking ideas at the host courses for the U.S. Mid-Amateur was inspiring and the high standard for course conditions make Independence and Kinloch worthy sites for a USGA championship. It was good to be home.
Southeast Region Agronomists:
Jordan Booth, Ph.D., senior director, USGA Course Consulting Service – jbooth@usga.org
Chris Hartwiger, director, Agronomy – chartwiger@usga.org
Chris Neff, agronomist – cneff@usga.org
Information on the USGA’s Course Consulting Service
Contact the Green Section Staff