Lara prepares for Italy's first Ryder Cup

With the Ryder Cup taking place in Rome later this month, we spoke to the course superintendent, Lara Arias, responsible for presenting Marco Simone to the world.

The scale of the task facing Lara when she arrived at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in 2020 was daunting.

With the Ryder Cup heading to Rome, it was Arias’ responsibility as superintendent to oversee a complete rebuild of the host course and make it fit to stage one of sport’s biggest events.

Having worked on the greenkeeping team at Le Golf National for the 2018 Ryder Cup, she was ready for the challenge.

With the competition now looming on the horizon, Arias’ work will soon reach its conclusion, but a new adventure is just around the corner as the 33-year-old and her partner, Marco Simone’s Director of Agronomy Alejandro Reyes, prepare for parenthood.

 

What was the journey that led to you being a golf course superintendent?

All of this started for me when I finished my degree in forestry engineering and I was looking for options.

One day I was speaking to a golf pro and he started to talk about greenkeeping, which I didn’t know anything about and I never thought it would be my future, but I was interested to find out more.

I entered a one-year programme in the south of Spain where you do an internship while you learn the knowledge of greenkeeping. I really enjoyed it and decided this was what I wanted to do.

After that I spent 18 months in the United States on a programme where I worked at three courses – Robert Trent Jones in Gainesville, TPC at Scottsdale and Quail Hollow during preparation for the PGA Championship.

Just before Marco Simone I was working in Seville at a really nice course called Real Club Pineda, and I worked at Le Golf National to prepare for the French Open and the Ryder Cup in 2018.

 

Can you describe the situation you were greeted with when you first started at Marco Simone?

When I arrived here the golf course was closed and under full renovation. I have basically seen this course from zero, from the grow-in, from the first seed.

Going back three years, we didn’t have a golf course and it was our job to create one for the Ryder Cup, which is really special.

It was a challenge, but you cannot say no to a project like this. To see a golf course go from zero to get to the stage where it will host a major event like the Ryder Cup is an incredible feeling for me and the team.

 

What have been the major landmarks on the way to having the course ready for the Ryder Cup?

Since 2020 with all the work we have done, we were able to first open the golf course for the members that year and later on for those paying green fees.

Then in 2021 we hosted the Italian Open for the first time, just one year on from the renovation and we have hosted the same tournament again in the last two years.

Now the full focus is on the Ryder Cup. 

 

What can we expect from the course at Marco Simone for this year’s Ryder Cup?

I think that we know how to set up the golf course to win the Ryder Cup now.

At Le Golf National it was a successful setup, we can definitely say that. All the journalists spoke about the golf course, about the greenkeeping team and about the superintendent, Alejandro Reyes, as another player for Team Europe.

If you saw the Italian Open last year, the rough was really high and that’s important for us in how we want to set up the golf course.

 

Are there any specific challenges posed by the conditions in Rome?

It’s true that we don’t have the same conditions here as in Paris, because in Rome the summer is very hot, so maintaining a thick rough is more difficult.

If you asked me what the most important task is for me during the summer, it is to keep the rough alive. The Ryder Cup is at the end of September and that’s a good thing for us because the rough will recover a lot that month.

The golf course will be closed so there won’t be traffic, which is great, and the hottest temperatures are in August, which is when irrigation becomes really vital.

 

One unavoidable challenge was COVID – how did that impact on your work?

Of course, the global pandemic meant the Ryder Cup was delayed by one year.

It was very difficult, but we didn’t want to stop the project, so we kept working, but it was important to take care of our team. Even working outside, we didn’t want COVID in our team.

For us, during the grow-in and the early stages, the focus was just on making the golf course playable – to be honest, I couldn’t even think about the Ryder Cup.

We had one year to make the course ready to host the Italian Open. We were lucky we didn’t have any heavy storms, as happened in 2019, because when you are doing the grow-in and you get bad weather, it can be really damaging.

Later on, we had the time to switch our focus to maintaining the course to the highest standard for the Ryder Cup, identifying any areas of weakness and making sure it was as good as it can be.

 

What feedback have you had after the last three Italian Opens?

It was a great experience to host that first one in 2021. You have seen a course go from being under full renovation and in one year you have 157 players out there. Incredible.

You do get feedback from the players and from the tournament director and all that information you get after the tournament week helps you a lot.

After 2021 and up until now we have modified a few things on the golf course because of things we learned.

We have identified the weak areas and improved them and for me as the superintendent it’s very useful to have all this information about the course and how it plays from hosting three Italian Opens.

 

Have you thought about how you’re going to feel when the first tee shot is struck?

I am going to cry a lot, for sure. It’s going to be super special for me.

It has been such a huge challenge, there have been many problems and it has been difficult to make this possible, so it will be a big moment when it starts.

I have to say a big thank you to everyone who has been involved with this project to make it possible.

As I have said to the team, when Ryder Cup week arrives, we must enjoy it. All the hard work will be done so it is a week to enjoy.

I really think, with all respect to the American and European teams, the winners of the Ryder Cup will be all the people involved in getting this course ready, because it was such a huge challenge.

 

Millions of people will be watching around the world and many will have their say on the condition of the golf course – are you ready for that?

For these past three years I haven’t thought too much about everyone on the outside, because this project has kept me very busy on the golf course.

It is not good for me to overthink things because I’ll probably get nervous, but I have been too busy to think about it too much.

During the tournament week I’m going to be focused on the team and the golf course, but I will take a look at social media to see what people are saying.

Nobody wants to make any mistakes and we want to make sure everything will be perfect. I will be keeping very positive. I know we have done our best so I will be very proud.

 

This is set to be a very special year for you as you are expecting your first child – when is it due?

The end of November/first week of December – I’m going to have a great belly during the Ryder Cup!

I knew I was pregnant before the Italian Open in May, but I didn’t want to go for an appointment during the tournament week because I wanted to be on site to make sure everything was okay.

But everything is going very well, I feel great and it’s going to be super special because the Ryder Cup means a lot to me. It’s the biggest golf tournament in the world, I met Alejandro at the 2016 Ryder Cup, we worked together at the 2018 Ryder Cup – the next year we got a dog and called it Ryder.

Now to be pregnant during this Ryder Cup, I don’t think it could be better.

 

Lara’s greenkeeping team

The greenkeeping team is super, super young. Like the course, they also started from zero.

We have people from Ecuador, Salvador, Italy, Spain, France – and only 20% of the team have previous experience on a golf course.

They started to work with us and they started to cut greens for the first time, doing fairways, approaches and tees – it was all new to 80% of them.

Imagine the experience of seeing, in one year, the golf course under full renovation to hosting a tournament for 157 players at the 2021 Italian Open.

We also have many volunteers who helped us during the three Italian Opens we have hosted at Marco Simone.

They know the golf course very well now after those experiences, they know the greenkeeping team and the work they do.

It’s really positive for the Ryder Cup that we will have a team of volunteers where 70 to 75% of them already know the golf course really well. This is going to make my life very easy during the tournament week.