Staff Has Tiburón Ready For Shark Shootout

NAPLES, Fla - This week golf course superintendent Scott Slomka and director of golf course maintenance Dale Conzelmann, host the Shark Shootout at their Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Fla.

The 54-hole team event starts Friday, December 11. It features 12 two-man teams. Friday's round will be modified alternate shot, Saturday a better-ball and Sunday's final round will be a scramble.

The two members of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America had to scramble in getting Tiburón ready for the event after two inches of rain fell last weekend. The duo still managed to get the bermudagrass greens rolling 12 feet on the Stimpmeter. Without additional rainfall of significance, the course should continue to dry out and speed up as the week progresses.

Tiburón, located in Soutwest Florida, is hosting The Shark Shootout for the ninth time.

Nestled in Southwest Florida countryside, the golf course is within the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort and is carved out of 800 acres of native Florida foliage. Tiburón, which means shark in Spanish, reflects designer and World Golf Hall of Fame member Greg Norman's appreciation for pristine natural settings. He designed it to play like a firm and fast British Open links course, but without the frustrating thatch of rough. No. 13, a short par-4 over a lake, is the signature hole. It features an orange waste bunker on the right side of the pine straw-lined fairway and white-sand bunkers on the left.

Tiburón is a certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary and home to many different kinds of birds, along with predators such as alligators, bobcats and panthers. With numerous native areas and non-irrigated waste areas, there are only 60 acres of turf on the course. Tiburón's tees and fairways consist of GN-1 bermudagrass, a genetically pure hybrid bermudagrass that Greg Norman Turf Co. owns the exclusive rights for, recovers from damage faster than conventional bermudagrass, is darker green in color and ideally suited for fairways, tees and athletic fields.

Norman serves on the board of trustees for GCSAA's philanthropic organization, The Environmental Institute for Golf, and chairs the Institute's Advisory Council. He also is an honorary GCSAA member as the recipient of the association's highest honor in 2008, the Old Tom Morris Award.

The above story originally appeared in GCM News Weekly, an e-publication of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.