THE FINAL BLUEPRINT While planning for the championship began more than a year ago, the golf course itself won’ t truly begin taking shape until late summer.
Throughout July and August, the focus is survival. Holbrook and his staff work to guide cool-season turf through Virginia’ s most stressful weather, protecting bentgrass from prolonged heat while preserving the health of the course.
By September, the mission changes. As bentgrass recovers, Holbrook shifts from simply maintaining the golf course to preparing it for championship conditions. Every irrigation cycle, mowing pattern, and moisture reading becomes part of a carefully executed plan designed to produce firm, fair playing conditions in October.
Beginning the week before the championship, carts will be restricted to paths to help firm the fairways and approaches. Hand watering will become even more deliberate, particularly around greens and bunkers.
Although the Korn Ferry Tour’ s target of roughly 12 feet on the Stimpmeter is well within the capabilities of The Federal Club’ s greens, Holbrook believes speed alone doesn’ t define a championship test.
“ The firmness is what’ s going to make this a great and challenging golf course,”
Holbrook said.“ When our greens get firm, it really shows who the best players are.”
That is how the PGA TOUR sees it as well, according to Connolly.“ For us, the most important thing for any golf course really is firmness of the greens,” he said.“ If we can have firm greens, then we can have a decent defense of the golf course.”
That philosophy has changed the way his team prepares the course. Rather than relying solely on experience and instinct, Holbrook and his staff have embraced a more data-driven approach throughout the season.
“ I’ d say there’ s been a much higher level of attention to detail, forecasting, and recordkeeping,” Starcher said.“ We’ ve been a lot more thorough with everything we’ ve been doing— not only how it worked, but how long it took to recover and when we needed to do it again.”
One of the team’ s most valuable tools has been the GS3™ Ball, developed by the USGA. The device captures more than 15,000 data points during each evaluation, measuring green speed, smoothness, trueness, and firmness while eliminating operator bias. Those measurements, paired with moisture readings, weather forecasts, and years of local knowledge, give Holbrook
“ If we can have firm greens, then we can have a decent defense of the golf course.”
— Tim Connolly
18 V IRGINIA G OLFER | S EPTEMBER / O CTOBER 2026 vsga. org