The Monday Mowdown: TPC Twin Cities Recovers, Gleneagles Remembers

TPC Twin Cities is hardly a forgiving place to prepare while turf is still catching up.

The 3M Open setup measures 7,431 yards and plays to a par of 71. Water is in play on 15 holes, the average fairway width is 35.6 yards and the bluegrass-fescue rough is listed at 4 inches. Its bentgrass greens are maintained at 0.100 inches, with the collars, approaches and tees all below three-tenths of an inch.

Those measurements can sound like simple maintenance specifications. They are actually competitive decisions.

Four-inch rough changes how aggressively players can challenge the water. Closely mown approaches bring slopes and collection areas into play. Green moisture, clipping yield and firmness all influence whether an approach stops beside the hole or releases toward one of the places a player was trying to avoid.

The maintenance team also cannot prepare one feature in isolation. Pushing green speed too early can place more stress on turf that is still recovering. Adding water to protect one area can soften the playing characteristics of another. Tournament preparation is always a negotiation between what the event wants and what the plant can safely provide.

Rolstad’s team has been managing that negotiation throughout an abbreviated growing season.

The winter was not the property’s first recent reminder that course conditioning rarely follows a clean script. Before the 2024 tournament, nearly every bunker had to be rebuilt after a September storm dropped 7 inches of rain. A Green Ash removal project is also continuing across a property that began its life as a sod farm.

The PGA Tour lists the 3M Open competition for July 23-26 at TPC Twin Cities. By then, most viewers will see striped fairways, clean bunker edges and smooth bentgrass greens. They will not see the weeks spent repairing the evidence of winter.

That disappearing act is one of the quiet standards of good agronomy.

Inside the 3M Open Setup

Why This Tournament Week Is Already a Win

1

Winter left visible damage

A long winter and cold spring caused winter injury and delayed the regional growing season by roughly three weeks.

2

The setup offers nowhere to hide

Water affects 15 holes, the average fairway is 35.6 yards wide and the rough is maintained at 4 inches.

3

The standard remains television-ready

Rolstad’s crew still has to deliver closely mown bentgrass surfaces, detailed bunkers and consistent tournament playing conditions.

Joseph Rolstad’s Crew Is Working Against the Calendar

Rolstad is preparing TPC Twin Cities for his fifth 3M Open as superintendent and his seventh tournament there overall. He previously worked the event as an assistant in 2016 and 2017 before eventually returning to lead the operation. His background also includes superintendent experience at Fargo Country Club and assistant roles at Winged Foot and Fresh Meadow Country Club.

That résumé matters during a season like this one. Course recovery cannot be managed entirely from a spreadsheet or moisture reading. It requires knowing when to push, when to wait and which visual imperfections are worth accepting to protect the playing surface underneath.

Rolstad has 38 agronomy employees and 50 tournament volunteers available for the 3M Open. Assistant superintendents Brandon Smith and Avery Brandt, equipment manager Shannon Bullock and the rest of the team must coordinate a property containing 28 acres of fairway, 59 acres of rough, 72 bunkers and 27 water hazards.

The volunteer number may stand out, but more people do not simplify the operation. Tournament week adds equipment movement, communication, training and timing challenges. Every group has to finish its work before players, officials, television crews and spectators take over the property.

The most impressive part of this week at TPC Twin Cities may not be a particular green speed or a perfectly defined mowing line. It may be that Rolstad’s team got the course to Thursday without allowing a difficult winter to become the tournament’s dominant story.

The King’s Course Uses Contour Instead of Water

The challenge at Gleneagles begins with a very different piece of ground.

James Braid designed the King’s Course, which opened in 1919 and will play 6,859 yards at par 70 for the Senior Open. There are no water hazards, and water is officially listed as being in play on zero holes.

That does not make the course defenseless.

The King’s has 108 bunkers covering approximately 2.5 acres. Its greens average 9,000 square feet, while the fairways average 48 meters in width. The course rises and falls across the Perthshire landscape, with a difference of nearly 140 feet between its highest and lowest points.

Players may have room from the tee, but they still have to find the proper side of that room.

Large greens create more potential hole locations, not necessarily easier targets. Width can offer options, but Braid’s contours, bunker placement and approach angles determine whether those options are equally useful. A shot can find the short grass and still leave the wrong view into a sloping green.

That is the beauty of an inland course that does not rely on ponds or sheer length to remain relevant. The land keeps asking the questions.

The ISPS HANDA Senior Open returns to the King’s Course after Darren Clarke won there in 2022. The R&A identifies it as Europe’s only senior major, and the 2026 championship will again be played July 23-26.

Gleneagles has been part of elite golf for much longer. In 1921, the King’s hosted an international match between American and British professionals that is widely regarded as a precursor to the Ryder Cup.

This week’s field is stepping onto a course that has been accumulating competitive memory for more than a century.

Gleneagles Golf History

A Century of Competition, Led by 46 Years of Experience

1919

James Braid’s King’s Course opens for play.

1921

The course hosts an international match between British and American professionals that helped inspire the Ryder Cup.

46 Years

Director of Agronomy and Estates Scott Fenwick has spent his entire professional course career at Gleneagles.

2022

Darren Clarke wins the first Senior Open played on the King’s Course.

2026

The senior major returns to a par-70 setup featuring 108 bunkers and no water hazards.

Scott Fenwick Gives Gleneagles Something Numbers Cannot

Fenwick has been present for a considerable portion of Gleneagles’ modern history.

His tournament résumé includes Scottish Opens, WPGA Championships of Europe, Scottish PGA Championships, Johnnie Walker Championships, the 2014 Ryder Cup and the 2019 Solheim Cup. Now, after 46 years at the estate, he is leading another major-championship preparation.

There is no statistical category for knowing how a particular green reacts after three days of a certain wind. There is no line on a fact sheet for remembering where moisture lingers, which bunker face needs another look after rain or how a section of turf behaves when temperatures shift.

That knowledge is built one season at a time.

Fenwick leads an agronomy staff of 50, with golf courses manager Grant Frogley and equipment manager Ronald Wilson among the key personnel. Only three tournament volunteers are listed, making the Gleneagles operation far more dependent on the staff already working across the 850-acre estate.

Good growing conditions have helped the buildup, but favorable weather does not remove the detail from championship preparation. The King’s greens are maintained at 3 millimeters, with bent-fescue approaches at 8 millimeters and fairways at 10. The fescue-rye rough is listed at 50 millimeters.

Fenwick has spent decades learning how those surfaces connect to Braid’s design. That continuity is increasingly rare, not only in golf but across the working world.

TPC Twin Cities and the King’s Course will look nothing alike this week. One uses water and recovery pressure. The other leans on contour, bunkering and angles shaped more than a century ago.

Their agronomy stories are equally different. Rolstad and his crew have spent the year recovering lost time. Fenwick and his staff are drawing upon time accumulated over an extraordinary career.

By Thursday, most of that work will be hidden beneath the tournament presentation. Players will discuss rough, firmness, bunker positions and difficult hole locations.

The people who made those conversations possible will already be preparing for the next morning.

PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer who serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his recent “The Starter” on R.org, where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To stay updated on all of his latest work, sign up for his newsletter or visit his MuckRack Profile.