AUSTIN, Texas — WGC Dell Match Play returned to Austin Country Club this year after a two-year hiatus. 

The PGA golf tournament was canceled last year due to the pandemic, and its fate was up in the air again this year after February's winter storm took a toll on the golf course. Bobby Stringer is the man who works round the clock to get the greens back into tip top shape.  

"I'm guilty sometimes of saying this is my course, when in effect it is not," Stringer said.  

After 13 years of tending to its every need, it's no wonder Stringer has grown so attached. 

"It's one of my — it's my fourth daughter," he joked. 

On top of being a "Girl Dad," Stringer is the golf course superintendent at the country club. He says planning for Dell Match Play is a year-round job.  

"It takes a mountain of people to get it to look like this," said Stringer. "It doesn't just look like this with three guys and a rake." 

On-site, Stringer has a team of about 60. He says much of their job is taking the good, and the bad, from each tournament and applying it to the next. 

 "You kinda make your lessons learned list," said Stringer. 

There's an off-site team as well which includes Thomas Bastis. He oversees a dozen PGA courses and is constantly checking in on their condition. 

"A lot of times it's how the golf course is reacting to the weather," Bastis explained.  

This year that question was no different, but the weather had other plans when the February storm hit.  

"When we saw there was the possibility of some snow, of course being in Austin, you think, 'Okay, it's going to snow and melt and we'll be back on the road by 5 p.m.,'" said Stringer. "As it got closer, we realized we had to start making preparations for an extended event -- three to five days. I didn't know it was going to get down to five degrees, but it did. And we were five degrees for three straight days." 

The biggest concern was the greens, which they covered with tarp.  

"That's our most valuable asset, but it's also the most finicky part," explained Stringer. "The grass on there can't take zero to five degrees left out in the open." 

"Ultimately the prize of the tournament are the greens. If the asset is damaged, what effect does that have on the tournament?" Bastis said.

Stringer and his team worked 14 hour days for a month straight. While this year's list of lessons certainly includes rolling with the punches, but it's also learning to not be so hard on himself.

"A lot of things are just out of your control and you have to be patient. We had to get the snow off, we had to wait, let everything kind of start rebounding before we started pushing it to get it where it is today,” Stringer said.