Preparing for the EuroPro Tour

The PGA EuroPro tour is returning to Montrose Golf Links the week after next (21 June) with a week of top quality golf on view.

It kicks off on the Monday (21 June) with practice day, then a pro-am on the Tuesday, before each of the three rounds are held on consecutive days through to the Friday.

The tournament is covered by Sky Sports and John E Morgan will be back to do the commentary and analysis.

Past champions of this tournament such as Oliver Farr, Chris Lloyd and Jack Senior are now regulars on the European Tour, a testament to the fantastic grounding provided by the EuroPro tour.

The 1562 course will be open from 4pm onwards to season ticket holders on the Monday and Tuesday but closed all day on Wednesday and Thursday. It will reopen at 5pm on Friday (25 June).

The Broomfield Course is open as normal.

Spectators are of course welcome but do remember to stick to social distancing.

Volunteers

Two of our season ticket holders – Anne Reoch and Eileen Fullerton – helping out at a previous EuroPro

We are looking for volunteers to cover a range of duties.

Starters are needed for the first tee during the practice rounds and tournament play.

We also need scorers and scoreboard operators on the course, although not as many this year as there is live scoring taking place at the 6th and 12th greens, and the players verify their scores at these points.

We are also looking for practice ground helpers to make sure things run smoothly on the range.

The greenkeeping team is also looking for help on 17 June ahead of the tournament to divot the fairways ahead of the tournament.

We are so incredibly grateful to the volunteers who have already agreed to help us at this year’s EuroPro.

If you still would like to help, then please give course secretary Claire Penman a call on 01674 672932 or email secretary@montrosegolflinks.com

The build-up

This week and next, we start to increase the amount of cutting on area like tees, apron and fairway. We may also lower the height of cut depending on the weather, so if it’s hot and sunny it is less likely.

On the fairways, we will start to box our clippings to remove as much debris as possible and have the fairway looking its best.

We will also apply growth regulators on the putting surfaces to ensure the growth slows down. This helps increase the speed of the greens.

Water will also be reduced to the putting surfaces and hand watering will increase as we concentrate on the drier areas on the greens.

This helps firm up the greens and be more “linksy”. They will be rolled daily for 12 days as this again increases the speed of the greens.

Officials from Europro are looking for green speeds in the region of 10ft. The average speed for greens is normally between 8ft and 9ft, so 10ft for the average golfer is more difficult to putt on.

All cutting of bunkers, tee banks, semi rough, strimming work and divotting are done the week before the competition, along with the day-to-day cutting of the course.

During the tournament, we cut and roll greens daily, cut tees three times, aprons and fairways twice and move holes four times, along with any other areas we think we have time to cut and look after. We also still try to maintain the Broomfield to the best of our capabilities.

Event information