Simpson Cup: What to Expect From Host Shady Oaks Country Club

The Simpson Cup, an annual Ryder Cup-style showdown between teams of injured service members from the U.S. and Great Britain, has gone to some special venues in its 14-year history: St. Andrews, Shinnecock Hills, Royal St. George’s. Starting this Sunday, the tournament will visit its first modern golf course, Shady Oaks Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.

As a club, Shady Oaks is not new. Its initial Robert Trent Jones-designed course opened in 1958. In 2019 and 2020, however, Shady Oaks underwent a complete transformation at the hands of OCM Golf, the Australia-based outfit led by Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking, and Ashley Mead. This was OCM’s first major project in the United States. Since then, the firm has garnered several more U.S. commissions, including an acclaimed redesign of Course No. 3 at Medinah Country Club.

With the Simpson Cup approaching, I sat down with Shady Oaks’ golf course superintendent Justin May to discuss the course, its agronomy, Texas weather, and the club’s preparations for this unique event.

Garrett Morrison: The Simpson Cup starts on Sunday. How is the golf course looking?

Justin May: It’s recovered from summer. We had a rough summer. But starting October 1, we’ve had fantastic weather. The greens are firm and fast and completely healed. Everything else has come together at perfect time. We’re looking forward to the tournament.

Garrett: What happened with the weather in the summer?

Justin: I believe it was July 12 that we had our last rain. I kept track on my calendar. We made it, overall, 60-plus days with no rain. We had over 70 100-degree days. And it lasted to the last day in September. Then, October 1, we got close to five inches of rain, and it has been cool every day since. So that gave the course time to recover and the greens a chance to come back, and they’re doing really well now.

I was worried. We had a terrible drought down here. We always have rough summers, but this one was top 10 in the record books. So the main thing was just trying to get the course back and healthy before we got into these fall temperatures.

Garrett: What’s the weather typically like at this time of year in Texas? Is it usually a good time for golf?

Justin: It is. Mid-September to Thanksgiving is the best weather there is. We’re talking upper 50s to low 80s. What makes it so nice down here is the fall. We don’t get a terrible amount of rain. It’s just super enjoyable to be outside. Anytime you get out of the hundreds, it feels pretty dang good.

Garrett: Getting to the preparations for this specific tournament — many participants in the Simpsons Cup are adaptive golfers. Are there keys to setting up a golf course for a tournament like this?

Justin: Not specifically. Sunday is the practice round, Monday is the pro-am, and then Tuesday and Wednesday, the tournament. Green speeds will be anywhere from 12 to 13. Nothing too crazy, just keeping them fair and true. They had a practice round back in July, and they really liked the course setup then. So we’re moving some tees back and some tees a little forward, but no big change from our normal course setup.

These guys are tough. They have lost legs and arms and fingers and all kinds of trauma, and they come out and play golf. They don’t need special treatment. They play it just like you and me. So we don’t have any special setups or anything for them. When they played their practice round in July, it was 100, 105 degrees. They were in the thick of our summertime conditions. So I think they’ll enjoy things much better this time, just because of the weather. 

Really, there’s not much we do differently. Just handle it as normal. But Mother Nature definitely helped us get it back in top shape, tournament-ready.

Garrett: Let’s talk about the golf course itself. What are some of the key things people should know about Shady Oaks?

Justin: We have 60 acres of fairways. Fairly large greens — five-and-a-half acres. We’ve got some 10,000-square-foot greens out there, and a couple of double greens. When you get to the green, it’s not necessarily an easy two-putt, for sure. There are challenging green surrounds, with lots of short grass. Not a ton of rough. 

We’ve got some extreme bunkers — high lips, high faces. We have 112 total throughout the property. That includes the “Little Nine” in the middle as well. So it’s heavily bunkered, but not over-bunkered just for show. Almost every bunker is in play.

Garrett: OCM Golf renovated the course in 2020. It was a pretty dramatic transformation. What are some important things they introduced to the course?

Justin: Originally Shady Oaks didn’t have much rough, but over time it gained some rough, as well as tree-lined fairways. So when OCM came in, they really brought back short grass and a lot more options around the greens. That’s part of their direction: having all that short grass, you’ve got a ton of different options, whether you’re going to putt it or chip it. They also increased the green sizes quite a bit.

Then there’s the bunker style — they took it from the old bunkers to the gnarly-looking bunkers we have now.

Garrett: What kinds of soils do you have out there?

Justin: In the fairways, you know, Texas gumbo. And then sand-based tees and greens. But pretty much just dirt and rock. It’s a heavy soil. 

The front nine has a lot more movement to it. The fairways are a little tighter and have a lot more slope. On the back nine, you get into the area of a creek that runs through the property. The water comes into play on holes 14, 15, and 16.

Garrett: How do you go about creating firm and fast conditions on the soils you have?

Justin: You can keep the Bermudagrass firm and fast in the summer, for sure. The fairways and tees — you can’t put enough water down to soften those up. The greens are bentgrass, and they stay a little softer in July, August, and first part of September, until the temps break. Then we’re able to start turning the water off and spot-watering a lot more, instead of just trying to keep them alive every day. During the summer down here, on bentgrass, it’s just about trying to live to the next day. But as we get into weather like we have right now, you can lay off the water and turn them up and know they’re going to make it. So it all depends on the weather, really. 

We have sand-based greens. They firm up and can get real quick in a hurry in the fall. We do lots of rolling, mowing, double-cutting, and top-dressing — normal agronomical stuff. But with the slope of these greens, you don’t have to get crazy with mowing heights. The slope of the greens helps you out a lot.

Garrett: Gravity does the work.

Justin: That’s right.

Garrett: Is there a particular hole you’re excited to see the players take on at the Simpson Cup?

Justin: Hole No. 5 is one of my favorites. It’s a par 3 where OCM cleared a lot of trees behind the green, and you can see downtown Fort Worth. It’s a high-to-low tee shot. Probably the hole that has most pictures taken of it. It’s got a zoysia barranca that runs down the side of it — kind of a gnarly little creek that we leave native-ish. And then everything around the hole is shaved and short grass. No. 5 is by far my favorite.