Ground Control

Gérard Tiquet

Head groundskeeper at Roland-Garros, site of the French Open, Paris

Photo: Christophe Saïdi

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Gérard Tiquet, in his 16th year working the clay at Roland-Garros, tends lettuce and potatoes in his own backyard. “You need to feel the ground. If you’re a good garden keeper, you can be a good clay keeper,” says Tiquet, who’s busy watering, raking and rolling the surface in preparation for the French Open in late May. To create the easy-on-your-knees centre court that European players – including four-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal – favour, Tiquet uses 80 tonnes of limestone mixed with water and brick, then rubs on two tonnes of red clay, made of crushed bricks, and hopes for sunny days for it to dry. Rain slows down the play (soggy clay means less bounce to the ball), while arid heat speeds things up. Add wind and you get what happened in 2006, when several airstreams seemed determined to take half the courts with them. Nadal audaciously asked for more clay during one match, a request that was roundly denied by the groundskeepers and officials since clay needs moisture to stick, and water can only be added between matches. “Too much water and the clay sticks to the ball. Players complain,” says Tiquet. “With 15,000 people watching, there’s pressure.”

Lindsay Durno

Operations manager, Whistler Olympic Park

Photo: VANOC/COVAN (Whistler)

“A snow maker’s worst nightmare is high humidity and mild weather,” says Lindsay Durno. But that’s exactly what he’s up against when bringing Whistler’s ski jump up to Olympic standards. Each year, the Callaghan Valley in B.C. receives about 15 metres of large, moist flakes – perfect for powder hounds but not for ski jumpers, who require “billiard-table-smooth” surfaces. With speeds reaching 95 kilometres an hour, skiers need a consistent track to jump off, and the landing hill must be firm so they don’t sink into the snow. Durno takes control with the world’s only permanent ski-jump refrigeration systems, which pump glycol at -13ºC along the side of each ramp for a constant track temperature. If snow falls during an event, a crew uses portable snow blowers to remove it from the track; on the landing hill, they sideslip on skis to pack the surface. “But if it snows too heavily, the competition is stopped,” says Durno. “The athletes’ safety comes first.”

George Brown

Golf course and estate manager at Turnberry Golf Club, site of the 2009 British Open, Ayrshire, Scotland

In Michael Corcoran’s book Duel in the Sun, golfer Ben Crenshaw described Turnberry, the storied Scottish course, as “burnished.” George Brown takes this as a compliment. In summer, the groundskeeper keeps irrigation to a minimum – over-irrigated North American courses favour backspin, which stops the ball from rolling too far from where it lands on the fairway – and lets natural grasses, such as fescue and colonial bentgrass, have their way. But weather in Scotland is finicky at best, invariably dictating fairway conditions. “Every time you play Turnberry, it feels like a different course,” Brown says. That’s the point, so he tries to interfere as little as possible. Despite steady rain last fall – it was so wet, he says, “even the seagulls were walking” – a ceaseless stream of golfers kept coming, muddying up the walkways in the process. But the course will dry out for the British Open in July, and when it does, Brown will mow the greens to a tournament standard of four millimetres (six millimetres is typical for regular play). At 71, he says his own golf game is “a little bit like romance: I’m not so good at it anymore, but I enjoy trying.”

Dan Craig

Facilities operations manager for the National Hockey League, across North America

Ask Dan Craig to describe the perfect conditions for a hockey arena, and he rattles off a list. “Your building has to be 15ºC to 17ºC, and the humidity, 40 to 44 percent. The ice should be between -6ºC and -7.5ºC. The players like the ice hard and fast, with good glideability. If you get a good glide on your skates, you’re going to get an awesome glide on your puck.” To create a dense, smooth ice, Craig first builds three thin layers by spraying hot water on the playing surface, which is kept below freezing with glycol- or calcium-chloride-carrying pipes underneath. He then applies a coat of white paint, before building up a sheet about 2.5 centimetres thick. (This can take 30 to 40 thin layers.) The ice is then levelled for a smooth surface. “From this point on, we lay down water for every game and practice,” says Craig. These “resurfaces,” as he calls them, consist of up to three thin layers, always made with hot water, which minimizes ice-weakening air bubbles. Proof that the Jasper, Alberta, ice master loves his job? At his home in River Falls, Wisconsin, he’s been known to go out at 1 a.m. and again at 5 a.m. during winter to flood his own backyard rink. “Summer’s for sleeping,” he says.

Meet the man behind the scenes at Churchill Downs, site of the Kentucky Derby.