Courses that host PGA tournaments

[JW216]

I was just wondering how soon can members at golf courses that have PGA tournaments can get back to playing on the course? For example, this weeks Bay Hill Invitational, how soon will the members be allowed back out onto the course?

[iacas]

Originally Posted by JW216

I was just wondering how soon can members at golf courses that have PGA tournaments can get back to playing on the course? For example, this weeks Bay Hill Invitational, how soon will the members be allowed back out onto the course?

Monday, sometimes Tuesday. There will be people taking stands down and whatnot, but typically you can get out pretty quickly.

Play before the tournament begins sometimes halts weeks in advance.

[RC]

Some clubs are closed on Monday, but not all.  Either way, as has been observed, usually play resumes the first normal day after the tourney ends.  One of the shocking things you see immediately after a tournament is just how much damage is done to the turf by the gallery foot traffic, heavy equipment, and, as you might expect since pros are proficient at hitting to the desired landing areas, divots all clustered around the best places.  And it is much worse if there has been wet weather during tournament week.  It is almost heart breaking to see fairway crossings turned into mud pits but it happens.

Repair ground crews can be hard at work for several days after a tournament.  And many places begin restoring rough length to whatever is normal rather than the length demanded by the PGA.  Even a place as pristine as Augusta National looks pretty shop-worn after the Masters.

[DarkPrince]

I happened to be up at Whistling Straights a few weeks after the PGA in 2010. I was dropping off some pictures I took to one of the caddies and here's a few pics of what the practice green still looked like 2 weeks later.  It was so weird to see all the bridges and grandstands gone, but if you look in the background you can still see the giant tent buildings from the Merchandise tent and the Press tents were still up. The course view is blocked by the clubhouse and the large artificial mounds otherwise I would have taken some shots of it.

[Golfingdad]

Several years ago, I had heard the Torrey Pines opens the Monday after the Farmers Insurance Open (then Buick Invitational) and they leave the tees and hole locations exactly as they were on Sunday.  Don't know if it's true or not, but sounds like it would be a fun (and masochistic) endeavor.

I have played there (also several years ago) prior to its closing before the tournament once and they had chalk outlines in the fairway delineating the point where they had stopped mowing to shrink the fairways for the pros.  I swear they were shrinking those things to like half their normal width.  Amazing.  Factor in the faster than normal greens, higher than normal rough, and add all of that to the back tees rating of 78.1 (wait, what ... 78.1?!?!?!) and those guys are routinely shooting 68's and 69's.  Good lord.