Highland Springs Country Club has hosted the Price Cutter Charity Championship since 1990, solidifying its legacy as one of the Korn Ferry Tour’s longest-running tournaments.
“No pressure,” says Jonathan Prange, Highland Springs’ superintendent since January 2022. Highland Springs is a Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed par-72 championship course in the shadow of the Ozark Mountains about 60 miles south of Branson.
“At this point, we’re pretty dialed into the event,” he says confidently, adding that as spring approaches, his crew’s main agronomic focus — aerification and preemergent control to get a handle on spring fairy ring — is creating quality playing conditions for the club’s membership.
However, the longevity of the Price Cutter Charity Championship at Highland Springs creates certain high expectations and some unique challenges for the turf team. With this year’s championship slated for July 18-21, successful event prep is all about timing, Prange says.
Highland Springs is located in southern Missouri and well within the transition zone, so the course finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Mid-July’s brutal heat and humidity can hammer both cool-season and warm-season turf, Prange says.
The Price Cutter Charity Championship is one of four original Korn Ferry events still on the tour’s schedule in 2024. (Photo: Highland Springs CC)
“In late July, I’m trying to get fast-and-firm putting surfaces on (the course’s A-1/A-4) bentgrass putting greens for the tour players, which can be quite a challenge,” he says. “And I want to come out of the Championship and still have healthy greens for my membership.”
Highland Springs also features warm-season zoysiagrass on the fairways and tee boxes. Most turf managers will be aerating their Zoysia by mid-July because it’s actively growing. Prange says punching holes in the turf takes a back seat at Highland Springs until after the Price Cutter.
“We’re in a tough spot because being located here in the transition zone, half the time it’s smoking hot and the other half its freezing cold,” he says. “Throw a tour event in the middle of that, and any cultural practices must be healed and ready to go. Other courses (in the region) are raising the height of cuts, reducing mowing, putting on solid rollers and a host of other practices to get their bentgrass through the heat and humidity. I’m being asked to lower the height of cuts and do multiple mowings and rollings per day to provide quality championship playing conditions when our turf is, frankly, quite stressed.”
Prange explains that getting through this challenge comes down to basic cultural practices.
For the warm-season Zoysia, it starts back in the fall with preventative applications for patch diseases, and again in the spring.
“Right after the tournament, we do some aeration and verticutting on the Zoysia and try to get it healed up before it stops growing,” Prange says, “In the spring, we do our preventative fungicides and herbicides and pretty much let our Meyer Zoysia do what it does.”
Prange adds about a pound of slow-release wetting agents as well to ensure ample moisture to encourage the Zoysia to kick in at the right time.
The cool-season bentgrass requires Prange and his crew to be more aggressive in the spring with verticutting, topdressing and organic matter management, using combination PGR products and meticulous growth data analysis to achieve the fast-and-firm conditions tour players favor.
Several high-profile names have won the Price Cutter Charity Championship at Highland Springs, including 2009 Open Championship winner Stewart Cink who won the tournament in 1996, a year before his PGA Tour debut. (Photo: Highland Springs CC)
“To measure is to know,” Prange says. “We’re constantly measuring things — firmness, TDR (Time Domain Reflectometry) moisture and volumetric water content, Stimpmeter readings — even before the tour gets here. And then we continue those practices throughout the event.”
While green speed isn’t an issue, the challenge for Prange and his team is maintaining firmness. Heat and humidity wilt turf and push greens toward softness. However, the Highland Springs course is nearly perfect under the right conditions and with the right amount of moisture.
“The players are just throwing darts onto the greens because the Meyer Zoysia is just meant for that time of year,” he says. “And with the right conditions, the greens are rolling between 12 and 14 that are true and smooth. They’re fast, but they’re receptive. I don’t see the tour backing me off except for very specific pin positions.”
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