TEE TO GREEN:With just over two months to go to the Irish Open the Killeen Course at Killarney is starting to come in to full bloom

IT REALLY is a case of all systems go now in the build-up to the 3 Irish Open Championship on our Killeen course.

Time is ticking down – what have we got, something like 66 days to the great tee-off when some of the world’s best golfers will answer the questions we pose them – and, after all of the problems left by our winter weather, the course is really starting to take shape.

Indeed, you know the countdown is on when professionals start arriving to play the course. So far, we’ve had a number of eager Irish PGA players here and, on a different note, JP Fitzgerald – the caddie to Rory McIlroy and his eyes and ears when it comes to getting to know a course – also paid an early reconnaissance visit. But I’m sure most tour players will leave it until they arrive on the Monday or Tuesday of the week before the tournament to really get to know the course. After all, the game for players of this standard is now all about yardages.

To be honest, with all of the repair work that was carried out on the course after the winter flooding, our time in recent weeks has been mainly spent in clearing away the undergrowth and gorse and working on the periphery of the course.

It’s something you don’t really think about in normal greenkeeping circumstances but, because of the huge crowds expected in Killarney over the August Bank Holiday weekend when the tournament takes place, we’ve had to cut back into the gorse to create extra space for the spectators and give them freedom of movement.

We haven’t had to do so much clearing of gorse since we hosted the Curtis Cup in 1996 and, of course, when we staged the Irish Open in 1991 and 1992, when Nick Faldo won.

I must say the course and the surroundings look great, although our attempts to grow rhododendrons and azaleas to augment the gorse haven’t been as successful as we’d like.

This, believe it or not, is due to the native Red Deer who come in across the lake from late-September until early May and you could have up to 30 or 40 of them around the course. They’re magnificent beasts but make life difficult for us because they devour any green plants, with the exception of the gorse. It is something we have come to accept and we can only get on with it.

We’re really getting into the nitty gritty now of getting the course ready and, thankfully, the improvement in the weather has helped. It’s been a great year for us in terms of getting so much work done because of the dryness, but there was very little growth until the recent warm spell. Ground temperatures were way down on normal.

You could get an idea of how little growth was possible for most of the year when you’d be scraping frost off your windscreen most mornings, right up until early May in fact.

That says a lot really but things have improved greatly this last few weeks. Looking at the TV over the weekend and seeing how well Wentworth looked, has only heightened the desire of our greenkeeping crew to make the Killeen course look its very best.

Our greenkeeping crew has had a busy time of it, especially having to look after the three courses – Killeen, which plays host to the 3 Irish Open, Mahony’s Point and Lackabane.

Whether it’s because we are staging the Irish Open or whether it’s because of the volcanic ash keeping more people at home or maybe a combination of both, we’ve been very busy with green fees.

That’s our bread and butter and it is very important to have such income, but our plan is to close down the course around July 14th or 15th so the course will be in tip-top shape for the tournament players.

Personally, I’m also delighted the promoters have ensured the ticket pricing will encourage families and groups to attend the tournament. You never know, by encouraging the young kids to attend and to see the likes of Harrington and McIlroy and Westwood and the other stars up close, you might find a few more McIlroys.

David MacIndoe is the course superintendent at the Killarney Golf Fishing Club, which hosts the 3 Irish Open on July 29th-August 1st. For ticket information on the tournament, visit www.3golf.ie