John Deere TPC Sawgrass Volunteer Programme

• Candidates must be a current member of BIGGA for a minimum of two consecutive years at the time of submitting their application
• Candidates must be currently employed as a greenkeeper and have worked in greenkeeping for more than two years
• Candidates must be qualified to Level 2 or above or possess equivalent qualification
• It is preferable for candidates to be able to demonstrate previous experience of volunteering, although this may not be at a large professional championship
• It is preferable that candidates are able to attend BTME 2025 ahead of the trip
• Selection for interview will be based on application and video submission and will be made by a representative of John Deere, a member of the relevant BIGGA Regional Board and the relevant BIGGA Member Services Manager

Held each year at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, THE PLAYERS Championship is considered by many to be golf’s ‘fifth’ major and as such it presents an incredible opportunity for BIGGA members to gain a huge amount of experience, in a once-in-a-lifetime setting. 

If that’s not enough reason to apply for a place ahead of the deadline on 31 July, here are 10 others:

1. Experience greenkeeping in America

Everything’s bigger in America, and that includes greenkeeping, with much of the latest machinery and techniques being introduced out there, especially at a venue as prestigious as TPC Sawgrass.

It is no surprise that in many ways, course maintenance is a different culture and by experiencing the preparation of warm season grasses, with the different products that are available, there is a lot to be learnt.

A spokesperson for TPC Sawgrass said: “At the end of the day, the volunteers make all the hard work of our tremendous staff really shine. They also get invaluable experience in preparing a course in exacting, television close-up standards, as well as the opportunity to network and learn.”

In total, more than 90 greenkeepers and turf professionals will team up to assist Director of Golf Course Maintenance Jeff Plotts in preparing the course for the championship, using the latest state-of-the-art John Deere machinery.

2. Play one of the most famous holes in golf

Following the final day’s play, before heading home, the greenkeepers will get the opportunity to attempt to hit the 17^th hole’s famous island green. In 2016 Richard Johnstone, course manager at Nairn Dunbar, was successful in his attempt and won the actual flag used during the tournament as a prize.

Richard said: “Aiming to just hold the ball on the green, I was surprised to have hit a perfect shot right next to the hole. The volunteers went wild, shouting, cheering and high fiving my shot, which ended up winning the competition and finishing off my 12 days in style!”

3. Gain volunteering experience at one of the game’s largest events

Ever since it was first held in 1974, THE PLAYERS Championship has been considered one of the PGA Tour’s most coveted titles. With its iconic 17^th hole, TPC Sawgrass provides one of the most recognizable settings in golf and will make for an unforgettable experience for the BIGGA members selected to join the programme.

Joe Barnes, greenkeeper at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club, said: “In terms of the way the tournament is set up, I would say it’s pretty similar to something like The Open. 

“The setup is pretty similar to The Open and they treat it as a major. We had talks each day that the agronomy team had organised, such as the PGA, and they would say ‘this is a major’.

“It’s a huge set up commercially. The TV networks cover it more than what they do over here. Sky Sports are just starting to match them, but they have pretty much full coverage over the practice rounds.”

4. Be involved with this…

(Thanks Craig Cameron, volunteer in 2018, for the great video!)

5. Gain some friends for life

This is an exciting, once in a lifetime experience, and over the course of 10 days in Florida you’ll get to know your fellow volunteers really well. By taking part in this programme, you’ll share some incredible experiences and make friendships within the industry that can last a lifetime.

In addition to meeting BIGGA members from all over the country, you’ll also be able to network widely and, who knows, there may be the opportunity for career progression.

Craig Cameron, Golf St Leon Rot, said: “I picked up little bits and pieces, such as ways of cutting and using boards when cutting the green. I had a great time networking with other members of the team and I even found a new member of staff! Interviews are one thing, but working alongside someone for a full week and chatting to them, you couldn’t have a better audition for a job.”

6. Spend 10 days in Florida

The six BIGGA members receive travel, accommodation, food and uniform as they join the team at the legendary venue for the entire duration of the competition, courtesy of BIGGA Partner John Deere.

And it’s not just life on the course that you’ll get to experience, but the evenings will be spent sampling the fantastic Florida culture.

There’s something to be said for sampling the beautiful Florida sunshine during March, too!

7. Build confidence in your interview and presentation skills

The selection process for TPC Sawgrass is all about building your confidence and will give you a fantastic idea of where you are in your career.

To be eligible for a place you need to be 21 years of age or over, have been a Full member of BIGGA for at least 12 months and be allowed to enter into the USA. Tick all these boxes and you will be asked to complete the rest of Stage 1.

The interview process will then be an opportunity for you to sell yourself and explain why this opportunity would be valuable in your career development. It's a great chance to practice interviews in a formal setting and the rewards could be extraordinary, so it's worth giving it a go!

8. A chance to exchange ideas and experience with your peers from all over the world

The team for the TPC Sawgrass is huge, with 90 volunteers from 14 different countries joining the home greenkeeping team in getting the course in shape for this major event.

Antony Kirwan of Romford GC said: “I was really amazed by the cultural diversity of the greenkeepers, from so many different countries, yet we all got on very well and became one massive team. 

“There was even the deputy from Thordon Park, which is just eight miles from where I work, and it was amazing to chat to him about life back home.”

There’s a lot to be said for gaining experience of working in different cultures, and a spot on the TPC Sawgrass Volunteer Programme shows you to be an ambitious professional, eager to learn and develop and that is something employers really value. 

Additionally, if you gain a spot on the programme you’ll have fought off competition from other BIGGA members across the country, highlighting you as one of the brightest talents within the greenkeeping industry.

9. Become part of an exclusive club

The experience doesn’t just end with those 10 days in Florida, and by earning a place on the volunteer programme, you’ll also get the opportunity to meet with previous volunteers at a meet-up that takes place during BTME and is hosted by John Deere, where you can share your experiences and exchange ideas.

Many volunteers have also returned to TPC Sawgrass in the following years, continuing to build their experience and make a name for themselves in the industry.

10. Pick up tips and hints that could be transferred back to your own course

What can be gained from working on a massive course, that may bear very little resemblance to your own course back home? Quite a lot, actually!

Nick Thorley of Little Aston explained: “I learnt how they plan and prepare ahead of the tournament to ensure everyone is working efficiently. It’s all about getting greenkeepers out on the course, doing everything within the strict time parameters they have and it was amazing to see how skilled they were at ensuring we could do the jobs they needed us to do to get the course in top condition.

In total there were around 90 greenkeepers, including volunteers. We’ve got seven greenkeepers at Little Aston and so I will probably never be in that position again, but just to see that was incredible. I wanted to see how it was run, how it was managed and planned as I believe these are some good skills to pick up.”

Make sure you don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity by applying for a place ahead of the deadline on Tuesday 31 May 2023.

Jeff Plotts of TPC Sawgrass

TPC Sawgrass Director of Course Maintenance Jeff Plotts discusses what it takes to prepare the Stadium Course for The Players Championship, including the famous 17th hole, and how the change in schedule has had a massive impact on course set-up.

If you're interested in joining the John Deere TPC Sawgrass Volunteer Programme, you can register your interest here.

Being at the headquarters of the PGA Tour, I imagine you have some large resources to draw upon?

We have a rather large team, but we also have 36 holes and a very large landscape department. The team is roughly 105 people, including our shop team, landscape team and both golf courses.

During championship week, we’ll have roughly 90 volunteers from all over the world, with 14 different countries represented. It’s a very diverse group that comes together to pull this championship off, but we need them all in order to pull off an event of this magnitude.

Some of those volunteers come from the UK, including the BIGGA members who form the John Deere Volunteer Programme each year. How do you blend all of those different nationalities together into a team?

We all speak the same language when it comes to golf course maintenance. We may come from different areas of the world, we may even  speak different languages, but when we get on the golf course, we all speak the same language.

The fun thing about pulling us all together is that we realise we’re really not that different from one another at all.

What is an average day like at TPC Sawgrass?

Well, it’s just like every other facility and we start the morning off by preparing the course for play. We’re open 365 days a year.

We get out and prepare the greens, first thing, and tend to the bunkers, tend to the golf course, and get ready for our first tee times on both golf courses. In that sense it’s no different to any other facility across the world.

Then we move towards projects, to try to get one step better than we were yesterday. That’s our goal. We’re not looking to be successful every day, we’re just looking to be one step better than we were yesterday and that’s how we build on success.

The expectations here, though, are enormously high. The people who play the Stadium Course are expecting The Players’ experience…

That’s right. And, no question, we want it to be championship-ready every day. It becomes easier for us to prepare for The Players Championship if we have the mentality of being championship‑ready every day.

Obviously weather, growth conditions and those types of things play into whether we achieve that and in truth we can’t be championship-ready every day. But if we have the mindset to have that condition, to have that detail, every single day, then getting prepared for the championship becomes that much easier.

Being around PGA Tour headquarters and the amount of professionals, VIPs and special guests that come, we need to be at that level. You know it’s a special, special, place. It’s a beautiful place.

Is there a huge shift from preparing every day and preparing for The Players?

The biggest thing I try to share with people that’s different from the championship week, compared to every other day, is just repetition. Our repetitions get picked up more. We mow all the short grass more often than we would for any other day.

Generally, we’re at the heights that we want to be at every day ‑ if the weather allows us. We want to be at championship speeds for our guests, but if weather can’t allow that, or we’re prepping for a tournament, we may not be there. But, if we can be there, we will.

It’s all about repetition and that gets ramped up for the championship.

Take me through what’s in the shed…

We’re 100% a John Deere fleet. We walk mow all our greens with an 18‑inch walk mower and we are prepping our approaches and tees with a 26‑inch walk mower.

All our fairways are cut with a 2500 triplex unit, which some people mow greens with. But we’re mowing our fairways with that.

All our rough inside the ropes is being mowed with a hand rotary mower ‑ just so we can be really clean.

March poses a little bit of a challenge for us. In late February, the live oak trees are shedding their leaves, so we want to be able to mow the rough and collect the clippings. The best way we found to do that was with a small hand rotary mower. We have a very large fleet of hand rotary mowers that we can use to mow the rough. These act almost like a vacuum cleaner for the rough and help stand the rough up a little bit better than a larger unit does.

The players that come back in March will see a very different golf course than they did last year. Take me through what’s been happening…

We overseeded the golf course in November with a blend of ryegrass and fine fescue.

It was 80% perennial ryegrass and 20% fine fescue to get over the Bermudagrass, which goes dormant in this part of the world during the spring.

We wanted to have grass that was actively growing and something that was very playable and manageable through the winter months leading up to the championship.

On the greens we overseeded with a poa tribe and velvet bent and aesthetically it’s much greener and more vibrant than Bermudagrass is in May. It was difficult to get the turf to really just pop, but we’ve managed it.

You overseeded the entire course, including fairways and rough areas. How has that process gone?

I think we’re right about where we need to be. You know, obviously, I’d like to see the weather get a little bit more on our side, a little bit more sunshine and temperatures to be somewhere around 75 to 80°F consistently. If we could see that we’d be in really good shape.

We’ll have to overseed every year, in November, preparing for March.

How do you maintain the 17th hole?

Sometimes we think we have to put a lifevest on guys that get up there to mow that. But it’s one of those iconic golf holes, obviously, and a lot of people want to come out and that’s what they want to see and that’s what they want to play.

It gets a lot of extra traffic. When you get a hole that receives a lot of extra traffic, it becomes a difficult hole to manage. If you’ve seen it right now, we put a walkway around the back of that green and that kind of stumps people when they see it for the first time.

But it’s just for us to manage the entry and exit points on that green throughout the winter months, when we’re not growing as aggressively as we are during the season.

But that green is very small, so it takes a lot of shots. Most golfers that come here are going to keep hitting until they hit the green, or maybe even hit it twice. That means it has a lot of ballmarks and it’s a challenging green to manage, but our team does a really good job.

It’s very difficult to aerify. You have to be really careful and aerify in a certain way. It takes extra nutrients, just to go through some of the wear problems that we have.

This place has never looked better.

Grab your seats. The show is about to begin. pic.twitter.com/YHtQEQw4K9

— THE PLAYERS (@THEPLAYERSChamp) March 13, 2019

With a single entrance and exit, and conditions not in your favour, do you have to be really careful with machinery on there?

Absolutely. That’s where the walkway we’ve created has really helped to balance some of that wear. We do a lot of roping and staking to try to help to keep people from having the tendency to walk in one direction every time. We have to manage the hole. You just can’t let it be.

The tee will get a lot of use as well…

The tee gets a lot of activity. There’s a lot of wedding photos that get taken out there. There’s a lot of extra photos that just happen on the golf course, so the tee gets a lot of wear.

It’s a beautiful golf hole but it holds up to it. Again, our team does a phenomenal job of understanding what that hole means and what it means to this facility and trying to maintain it accordingly. Even our landscape team gets involved on the 17th with the flowers around it. It's just a very important hole to us.

It takes a long time to get the flowers in and work through that process. There are 3,500 flowers just on the tree island. The team have to take a boat out there to fertilise it and make sure it’s tended to every day. That hole is just a really tough hole to manage, even though it doesn’t have a lot of turf.

If you're interested in joining the John Deere TPC Sawgrass Volunteer Programme, you can register your interest here.

Interview conducted by Steve Carroll of Sports Publications Ltd on behalf of BIGGA.

Greenkeeper International is the official magazine of BIGGA, the British and International Golf Greenkeeper Association, and is published on a monthly basis. It focuses on Greenkeepers and Course Managers throughout the greenkeeping profession. The magazine combines the latest news and new products with in-depth reports and analysis on issues of importance in golf course management.

 

The John Deere TPC Sawgrass volunteers 2017 (clockwise from back left): Sam Evans, Johnny Ryan, Harry Jones, Chris Hale, Paul Walton, Richard Johnstone

This week six BIGGA members are in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, taking part in course preparations for THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass, thanks to BIGGA Partner John Deere.

Paul Walton worked at Sharpley Springs while he was on the delegation but has since moved on to Hexham Golf Club. 

Don’t forget you can apply to be a part of the John Deere TPC Sawgrass Volunteer Programme 2024 by applying online now.

 

Paul Walton:

I was pretty nervous the first day I pulled up to the greenkeeping sheds, seeing so many new faces and being in surroundings that I was not used to. But everyone probably had the same look on their faces as I did, that of amazement and excitement.

The organisation of the whole place was impeccable. For example, we all had a booklet with relevant information such as health and safety, shift patterns, contact information and what is expected from all the staff.

Lucas Andrews is the course superintendent at TPC Sawgrass. He came across as a professional, but also a very laid-back, individual. He made the whole process relaxed and didn’t want anyone to feel pressured by their tasks.

We were all given a rucksack, kitted out with eight t-shirts – a different colour for each day – and a waterproof top and trousers.

TPC Sawgrass maintenance facility

After the meeting, everyone was allowed to roam around the huge greenkeeping sheds. There are three large buildings, for the mechanics, chemicals and a large building for machinery, equipment and the staff mess room. Each building was immaculate, with not one thing looking out of place.

Lined up neatly were row after row of John Deere grass cutting machinery, Gator and Pro Gator utility vehicles. There were so many you could only imagine the quantity of machines that were there, and every machine was spotless.

Simple things, such as fitting different machines with brushes that sit in front of the cylinders on the fairway units and walk-behind greens mowers make such a difference. Even though we brushed prior to cutting at Sharpley, it is always using two different machines, so this new method will save man hours and fuel for us. Also, when cutting the greens, there were ‘turning boards’ at either end of the strip. These were plastic boards that were laid out to help stop wear created by the mowers when turning, and this was a system I would like to adopt back home.

 

I just want to add a big thank you to BIGGA and John Deere for giving me the opportunity to go out to America and experience such a high-profile tournament.

For any greenkeeper out there, that may be put off by the video application part of the process, I would say to you: just give it a go. Get yourself out of your comfort zone and I promise it will be worth it, whether you get a place on the programme or not.

Click here for more information and to apply for a spot on the John Deere TPC Sawgrass Volunteer Programme 2024.