Building the Courts | Quad City Tennis Club

Why Grass?

Reviving a Tradition

Grass courts are expensive, seasonal, and demanding. Every practical argument points away from them, and the American tennis industry abandoned grass decades ago. QCTC built them anyway. Grass is where the game began, where its greatest championship is still played, and where serve-and-volley and the low skidding slice survive in their most complete form. Established in 1975, the club built the region a place to play the game’s oldest surface — with Bush Turf and 4 Most Sport Group, and from engineered ground.

The Site

A Court That Traveled a Thousand River Miles

The material beneath these courts did not come from the lot they sit on. It began as red clay, mined in western Pennsylvania, barged down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to the port of Rock Island, then carried overland to Milan, Illinois, where it was blended with Muscatine river sand and soil into a single engineered rootzone. An unusual lineage for a playing surface — measured not in seasons but in river miles.

Starting From the Ground Up

The courts sit beside the main facility on 47th Avenue in Moline, just off I-80. Three courts, side by side, each ringed by 15 feet of runoff. The footprint demanded precise grading before a single blade took root — water needed somewhere to go, not just off the surface but through it.

Drainage

The Drainage System

Beneath every court sits twelve inches of rounded river rock. Rounded, not crushed — deliberately. Rounded stone leaves larger, more consistent voids, and water passes through it freely during the seasonal deluges that define a Midwestern summer. The grade directs runoff toward subsurface collection rather than letting it stand, so the courts shed rain fast and recover quickly.

The Rootzone

An Engineered Growing Medium

Above the rock sits an engineered rootzone of imported clay, sand, and soil, laid by GPS-guided leveling to a flatness the eye cannot detect. Sand carries the water and firms the surface; clay and soil bind the profile and hold moisture where the roots need it. No part of the profile was inherited from the ground — every component was selected, measured, and placed.

An 80/20 Rye and Bluegrass Canopy

The surface is an 80/20 blend of Perennial Ryegrass and Kentucky Bluegrass. Ryegrass establishes quickly and recovers from divots; Kentucky Bluegrass spreads laterally, adding the density that carries the turf across a season. The courts are maintained to University of Massachusetts turf standards. Wimbledon plays on pure perennial ryegrass; QCTC’s blend adds Kentucky Bluegrass, a deliberate concession to a Midwestern climate rather than an English one.

Irrigation

The Irrigation System

Grass courts live and die by water. QCTC manages the balance with a RainMaster irrigation system, calibrated to each week’s growing conditions. Paired with the free-draining rock base below, it lets the courts absorb heavy rain and endure dry stretches while holding playable through spring and summer.