Brickman helps behind the scenes at WGC Cadillac Tournament

MIAMI – Doral Country Club and Spa faced more than its fair share of challenges in hosting last week’s World Golf Championships Cadillac Championship, and handled them with the help of trusted partners, including the Brickman Group. Two days before the event a microburst took out trees and TV towers on the course, a transformer blew adjacent to the main villas, causing a small fire in shrubbery and leaving almost 50 of the world’s top golf pros without power.

The Brickman Group provides landscape maintenance to the resort, and installed the temporary landscape amenities for the tournament. After the power company, Brickman was Director of Engineering Mike Wirmel’s next call.

“Of course no one likes to get that call in the middle of the night,” said Brickman Regional Manager John Ashenfelter. “But we are committed to doing anything for our customers, no matter what time of day or night.”

Miami Branch Manager Don Simmons rallied his team, mobilizing two full crews and an irrigation technician to completely remove a large area of the damaged shrubbery and quickly cap off irrigation, so the power company could access and restore the transformer. Operations Manager Juan Carlos Quesada and his team then completely replaced the plant material and shrubs and restored the irrigation making it appear as though nothing had been disturbed.

“I’m grateful that I can count on our relationship with Brickman,” Wirmel said. “They came through for me last week and earlier this year when we had a water main break on New Year’s Day.  It’s unusual to find a contractor in this area that will even take your call after hours. They must be doing something right with their team because they’re always there when I need them.”

After the fire in the transformer Tuesday night, Brickman crews were back on the course Thursday for emergency clean-up of the downed trees left by the microburst.