18 July 2010 16:19 GMT

The world’s golfing media has all eyes turned towards St Andrews today, as the remaining players compete for the coveted title of ‘Champion Golfer of the Year’. Although one can easily become lost in the unique excitement of watching the best players in the world compete for the game’s oldest Major, there is a hidden side to golf at St Andrews that is often never seen by the public eye.

The dedicated teams of greenkeepers of the St Andrews Links Trust have had their work cut out for them, having been tasked with the challenge of presenting the most famous golf course in the world, at the pinnacle of perfect condition, for this week’s 150th anniversary Open Championship.

Led by Gordon Moir, Director of Greenkeeping, and under the guidance of Gordon McKie, Course Manager of the Old Course, some 65 greens staff have been working flat-out for the last four months to ensure that this iconic golf course is the very best it can be and a true example of fast running links golf.

With many staff working up to 19 hours during shifts that start at 4am each day, the culmination of today’s play will mark the success of the last four months of preparation. The Links Trust has been working closely with The R&A to ensure that course set-up has produced a fair, yet challenging, test of championship golf. Meanwhile the Sports Turf Research Institute, acting in their role as official agronomists to The R&A’s Championships Committee, has ensured that course preparation has been specifically targeted to produce uniformity and consistency across all playing surfaces.

While achieving and maintaining these optimum playing conditions has been the overarching priority of the Links Trust this week, the weather across St Andrews has made realising this no easy task. Wednesday night saw some 35mm of rainfall on the Old Course, which left much of the fairway around the iconic Swilcan Bridge completely underwater on Thursday morning.

You would have had to have been up early to catch a glimpse of this, since by 6am all the standing water had been cleared and pumped into the burn, leaving the course playable for the first tee-off.

The success of The Open Championship is the result of the hard work of a great number of people, and the Greenkeeping team play an essential role.