Lukus Harvey is another “Master of the Moss” of exceptional pedigree, since graduating from Ohio State he has worked at some of the south’s finest: Doral Resort, the ultra exclusive -Calusa Pines in Naples, Ritz Carlton Jupiter, and some place called Augusta National. Harvey is presently the Director of Agronomy of the five championship courses at PGA National Resort and the leader of a staff over 100, but his demeanor is casual, his personality is engaging and personable . . . he’s the type of guy you’d wanna hang out and watch a ball game with.
Recently, during a visit to PGA National we sat down and discussed all things PGA Resort (Champion Course), and the Honda Classic.
LinksNation: How big is the property here at PGA National?
Lukus Harvey: The golf courses encompass 850 acres
LN: Is 419 Bermuda the primary turf variety used on the fairways and tees on the 5 courses here at PGA National, and the greens?
LH: Everything except the (Champion) tournament course is 419, the Champion is Tif Sport with Tif Eagle greens.
LN: How many rounds are played at PGA National Resort each year?
LH: 150-155 thousand, in 2011 we did 152,500 . . . 70% of those are played between November-April. During the summer we’ll always have one course closed for aerification, or a summertime project.
LN: 90 holes of championship golf is quite an undertaking, how large is your staff?
LH: 103 people maintain the five courses as well as the grounds surrounding each course.
LN: That’s very impressive, just managing that many people on a piece of property where they are all spread out, must be a challenge.
LH: Yeah it is, and believe me we really do use up that labor.
LN: When does preparation begin for the Honda Classic?
LH: Everyday. Really at the end of the day, everything we do has some sort of bearing on that week. Doesn’t mean we’re doing everything totally for that week, but obviously were trying to be as much of a 12 month destination as possible, again we’re trying to provide the best product we can year round, but it’s always in the back of your mind . . . ok if we take a chance on this, how will it look around Honda time. The true just getting ready for Honda really starts in November, after our last herbicide application.
LN: What are the green speeds during tournament week?
LH: Not as fast as you might think, 10.5-11 because of the high winds we get here in March . . . not a lot of people know that in last years Honda we didn’t cut the greens on Friday(second round).During the first round on Thursday, Els hit a shot into 16 green to about 4ft, the pin was just on the top shelf, and as his group was walking up to the green, the wind blew his ball off the green about 40 ft away. Right about that time I got the call to go meet the rules official, he said I don’t think you should mow these greens tomorrow. The decision we came up with was to roll them that evening to get all of the spike marks out, hand water them a little overnight, so they would puff back up the next morning . . . we didn’t mow them Friday morning and they were fine.
A few weeks later we had the Els for Autism event here, and Ernie said to turn em loose (the greens) and lets see how the guys do . . . we got em to 12.5 that day, it was a fun day(they weren’t playing for money). You always have to remember that these guys are playing for their livelihood, and all there asking for is consistency, whatever you put out there on Thursday you have to try and put out there on Friday. After that, once the cut is made on the weekend, it’s alright lets try to show em what we got. You know what really happens, the faster the greens get, you start taking pin positions away . . . we can make the greens roll 13, but to be fair the tour staff would have to put every pin in the center of every green. That would take the challenge of ball striking and shot making away.
LN: Especially on holes 15 & 17 (Bear Trap par3 holes)
LH: The way it was taught to me was, no one should ever be penalized for a good shot.
LN: Does the PGA Tour come in and mandate anything to you?
LH: They have their guidelines that they’d like to see, what’s great about the tour is they love the locations that they come to, and they want to come back every year. Some events might not comeback to their locations for 7 to 10 years and their really are no repercussions. So one of the big things that we deal with is the overseed, obviously you want to provide the firmness for a tour event but you also don’t want to burn your overseed out.
When the tour leaves town you don’t wanna be left with half dead fairways for your customers and members who support the resort year round, and the tour gets that. They actually come a week before (it’s called advance week), and what we actually do is crank the water up and soften the golf course up the week before, and as the players start rolling in during the early part of the week (arriving from the match play), it never fails, we hear Oh my gosh the golf course is so soft . . . we just tell them, it will be ready for the competitive rounds, so we just kinda do that build up so we can dry it out, and it’s firm as can be by Thursday/Friday. It gives us that cushion, you couldn’t really pull that off for two straight weeks, and keep healthy turf, but the nice part is, on Sunday night after the final round . . . the sprinklers go back on, the grass greens up and resort guests can come out and enjoy the course that they just watched on tv and everybody wins.
LN: The Bear Trap gets all the publicity, what’s another section of the course that you think is underrated or just doesn’t quite get the respect it deserves?
LH: For me the Bear Trap starts on 14 and ends on 18, I think 14 is just a tough golf hole, and 18 it just doesn’t get much tougher than that for a par 5.The safer you play the second shot, the longer the third is . . . it’s hard to get it into that little throat to have a wedge for your third. I do think that 6 is a great hole, if you look at the shotlink stats from the tour every year, 6 is always ranked as the toughest on the golf course, and since it’s on the front nine it gets much less coverage. I remember last year, Y.E Yang was the only guy who had a birdie putt all four days on that hole, and he made 3 of them I believe, the day he parred it he missed like a 6 footer.
LN: You’ve worked at alot of different clubs, what are the different dynamics of working at PGA National as opposed to the others?
LH: There are no two places alike, that’s what is so great about golf. Each place is unique and offers great experience, some of the private clubs I’ve worked at are very exclusive not only in this area, but in the world.
For me it was always obviously educational, and a way to climb that ladder and take that proverbial next step, so I was always just trying to absorb as much knowledge as I could . . . for example, when you work at Augusta they have more resources and more things available to them then any other golf course, they’re may be a few that come close, and you can learn from that because you’re never gonna be able to go and get all those things. You can take all of that knowledge and say here’s what I have to work with, but I always find myself reaching back . . . I kinda think of Augusta as the mothership, the building block of my career and I always find myself reaching back there and thinking, what did we do there and how can I apply that here? At Calusa Pines, that’s about as exclusive as it gets in the state of Florida and that was fun, it was my first time working with Tif-Eagle and I’ve probably put in almost the exact same management program here as the Tif-Eagle at Calusa, and that is what we will always be judged on, is the greens. I ended up taking a little bit from each place.
I had so much fun when I worked at Doral, it was a great time in my career, it was my first superintendent job, I was single, living in Miami and workin with the PGA Tour, I just absolutely loved it.When I had the opportunity to go the Ritz(Carlton) it was something I just couldn’t pass up, I always wanted to live in this area, North (Palm Beach) County.I had offers to go back to Doral, and my friends were saying, I thought you loved working at Doral, and I remember thinking, if there was a Doral in Palm Beach Gardens I would do it, not even thinking about PGA National . . . then sure enough, the job opened and we talked about it and thought, wow there is a Doral in Palm Beach Gardens, so it was a perfect fit.
LN: Having the PGA Tour event here is a big responsibility, one not every Super can handle, but you seem to embrace it, why?
LH: For me I love it, if you don’t enjoy that responsibility you’re in the wrong place.It’s alot of work and it never stops, it’s a labor of love.
LN: What’s a normal schedule for you?
LH: It varies everyday, but this time of year a good day is getting here at 6-6:30 leaving around 4:30, but there are many days that I’m here later than that.For my young Superintendents, there is no time clock . . . if we’re fertilizing or applying herbicide we go till were done.
LN: You’re an Ohio State guy, what was it like going to school there?
LH: It was great, that helped me become a people person.When you go to one of the two or three largest universities in the country, it helps prepare you.Columbus is a metropolitan city and Ohio State is it’s own city within a city with 60,000 students.My fraternity had 64 guys and 47 of them lived in the fraternity house, the fraternity taught me that if you live in a house of 47 guys, not everyone will have everything in common, so it really taught me how to get along with others and how to function in a large scale situation.At the University you could have a class on south campus and if you had your mountain bike you could get to north campus in 25 minutes, it is such a large campus.Our program, some of the Ag labs were 3 or 4 miles west, so again it was like in a city within a city.
LN: After the last putt drops on Sunday, how long before you start preparing for the Honda next year?
LH: Not long, we’re usually right back at it the following week for our members and resort guests, then I usually take a little break a few weeks later.This year might be a little different since my wife is due with our second child right around Honda week, it’s gonna be a close call.
