MEMPHIS, Tenn — Thursday, Aug. 14 marks the beginning of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, where 70 of the best golfers on the PGA Tour descend on TPC Southwind hoping to play well enough to make the 50-man cut.
Behind the scenes, the golf course's grounds crew has been working tirelessly for weeks to have the course prepared to be played by the best in the world.
Nick Bisanz, director of golf course maintenance at TPC Southwind, is often up early and staying late - overseeing every blade of grass at the course.
"Everything influences everything else. So, it all has to come together at the same time," Bisanz said. "It's getting heights down, it's getting turf healthy to withstand the stress, the added stress that we throw at it this week, increasing repetitions mowing a lot more."
The grounds crew keeps the course maintained year-round but intensify their efforts in the six weeks leading up to the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Bisanz keeps a crew of 18 year-round. That increases to around 25 in the summertime with interns and college students helping out. The crew swells with 20 to 25 volunteers helping out from other golf courses in Memphis and Nashville and surrounding states like Arkansas, Alabama and Florida.
"It's pretty special to have those people come up here and be a part of it, and kind of donate their time and efforts and take away from there courses," Bisanz said. "They're taking away from their families and their jobs and and everything else, to come up here and be a part of this. It's a pretty humbling experience."
TPC Southwind will see tens of thousands of fans in just the four days of the tournament. Bisanz and his crew work alongside executive director Joe Tomek to make sure everything is in order to account for the crowd.
"We see anywhere from 60 to 70,000 come out for the five days that we're open to the public. Obviously weather and schedules and all that dictate it, but we're excited and we can handle all of it," Tomek said.
It's not just landscapers and lawn mowers that keep the course beautiful. More than one crew member praise Bisanz's two dogs, Millie and Honey. Millie is an 11-year-old border collie and head of goose control. Honey, a yellow Labrador, is more content to just play fetch. Both dogs are trained to clean up trash on the course.
"They hang with us out here. They keep up morale. They clean up trash so they're just around. They're a big help and everybody likes to see them," Bisanz said.
Course maintenance can be a thankless job. In fact, Bisanz jokingly says his crew is the one that gets blamed for everything. If he has it his way, his crew will be completely unseen during tournament weekend. That's just the way he likes it.
"A successful tournament, a successful weekend for us is nobody ever see us, nobody knows what we're doing. Everything goes off without a hitch.," Bisanz said. "Everybody here in Memphis leaves here proud of this facility and the tournament and what it stands for and who it helps out."