They came jammed in five vans -- make it six if you count the one carrying supplies, equipment and a driver -- swooping into the Katrina-battered New Orleans area like a band of heavenly angels.

The aim of this group of 29 men who hailed from Colorado, Wyoming and Oklahoma was to lend a helping hand, not in the rebuilding of New Orleans per se, but in the clean-up in their area of expertise, the city's ravaged golf courses. Each is, or will be once studies are completed, a guardian of the greens, a.k.a. a golf course superintendent.

Four New Orleans area tracks – English Turn Golf and Country, which will play host to the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in late April, the Tournament Players Club of Louisiana, city-owned Brechtel Golf Course and Audubon Park Golf Course, a beautifully renovated executive course in the heart of the city's university district – were targeted for handiwork.

They made up T-shirts spouting their motto for the weeklong trip: Super Intentions for Superintendents.

"The whole idea was to plant a seed," said Steve Sarro, the super at Vail Golf Club and a member of the Rocky Mountain Superintendents Golf Course Superintendents Association who got the golf relief ball rolling. "Maybe another section will follow our lead."

The TPC of Louisiana was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. (Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

Each of the four courses received the group's undivided attention from Monday through Friday morning. The group took the last afternoon off in order to tour the flood damage wrought when three of city's levees breached a day after the Category 3 hurricane swept out of the area.

"That touched everyone," Sarro said. "You had no idea looking at television or reading the newspapers how widespread the devastation was. It was a real wake-up call for all of us."

And having the cavalry ride in was a sight for sore eyes for the beleaguered superintendents at the courses.

"This was just one phenomenal group of guys," said Matt Yount, the superintendent at English Turn who not only was faced with the task of cleaning up post-Katrina but also of doing a rush job in getting his course ready for the PGA TOUR. "It was just wonderful of them to take vacation to come down and help us get prepared."

The New Orleans TOUR stop was held at English Turn from 1988 through 2004. The tournament moved to the Pete Dye-designed TPC of Louisiana in 2005, but the TPC will not re-open until this summer at the earliest. "I asked them to work on my bunkers," said Yount, whose staff of 27 had dwindled to 19 after the hurricane. "We were lucky here in that we didn't have flood damage, just lots of trees and limbs down. But we were happy to get help any way we can get it. We want to make the course as playable as possible for the best players in the world. We had issues and it is a giant project. We made a list and the bunkers were next up. Now that's another thing crossed out."

Retooling the bunkers also consumed the entire body of work at TPC of Louisiana.

"We completely rebuilt every one of them, adding new drainage and sand," said Sarro, who served as the roaming supervisor during the week.

At Audubon, the workers also improved the bunkers and the unruly Bermuda grass collars around them.

"Those collars were out of control," Sarro said. "They looked pretty nasty."

Audubon superintendent Walker Story appreciated the helping hand.

"That usually takes a big crew and we're shorthanded so we were glad to have them," he said. "It's really going to help at this time of the year, getting the course back for the summer."

The superintendents found Brechtel in a state of disrepair. There was no electricity to power the pumps in order to irrigate the course.

"There was no water and in our business that's a crime," Sarro said.

But a funny thing happened when help arrived. So did FEMA, which provided an electrician to power up the pumps. Once they got started the superintendents provided manual labor for 4½ days, something that pleased the golfers who saw the work.

"There were smiles, thank-yous and hand shakes from them," Sarro said, obviously pleased. "That was the biggest reward of all. We did something that helped them forget all the stuff going on outside the (golf course) fence."

It all happened because Sarro had the idea and Joe McCleary, a past president of the Rocky Mountain GCS, encouraged him to move forward. Sarro began spreading the word in an attempt to get funding. He sent out e-mails, made telephone calls and asked his peers to do the same.

Syngenta Professional Products got wind of the project and enlisted its Louisiana representative, Bart Fox, to lend a hand. Fox served as Sarro's leg man, scouting courses for the most needy. A laundry list eventually was whittled to the chosen four.

Funding came from a number of sources including the Golf Course Superintendents of America, Ewing Irrigation, Colorado Golf, Turf and Ellen Equipment, L.L. Johnson and Golf Enviro Systems.

The good news was everyone – New Orleans golfers, the local superintendents and the entire work force -- came out a winner. It was especially beneficial to the men who came to help according to McCleary.

"It was important for all of us to see what happened and what's going on here," he said. "The bottom line is, everyone just wanted to help. But there also were real world experiences for us all and you can't put a price on it."