Turfgrass Intern Spotlight- Fraser Curran at the Rocket Mortgage Classic

Hello, my name is Fraser Curran I am from Glasgow, Scotland and a Turfgrass Intern from the Ohio International Intern Program. Recently, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Rocket Mortgage Classic PGA tournament which was held at Detroit Golf Club (Donald Ross, Design) and was a fantastic experience!

Fraser Curran

During the tournament I was one of 20 volunteers that were part of the grounds team. Each morning, we were assigned our tasks, and my job was to rake the bunkers on the front 9 of course and for the evening my jobs varied between cleaning and collecting debris around the course, blowing greens and tees and divoting fairways. I really enjoyed raking the bunkers for such a great event and it was exciting to watch the golfers play their shot out of a bunker that I raked.

On Saturday morning thunderstorms were in the forecast and we had heavy rain all morning which meant the tee times were delayed because most bunkers were filled with water and fairways had large puddles on them which meant we had to split up into teams with one team on bunkers with a pump clearing the water and raking the bunkers once cleared of water and a second team using squeegees to clear fairways, thankfully we managed to clear all the water and make the course playable again so the tournament could continue.

 I enjoyed every minute of my time volunteering at the tournament and really enjoyed meeting new people from around the world.

I would finally like to thank the Grounds team and Hyde Park members for this amazing opportunity and allowing me to attend the Rocket Mortgage Classic, it was a great learning experience for myself and showed me the preparation that takes place and the standards of a golf course to hold a PGA tournament.

 

Thank you, 

Fraser Curran, Turfgrass Intern-The Ohio International Intern Program