Last year at this time (for the period from March 1 through April 18), we had had over 30 plus days with high temperatures over 60 including a few 70's and almost a week of 80's. Also, it was dry, course spring clean-up was complete, projects were getting addressed, turf was growing, and most importantly players were out enjoying the game!
What a difference a year makes! This year it' been downright cold, we've had maybe a few days over 60 degrees, none above 70, few days of sunshine, many days of rain and now the past 24 hours or so we've had over 4 inches. Needless to say it's a mess and will put a real damper (literally) on our course work and improvement tasks planned for this late spring.
The day in pictures follows: Remember you can click on photo to enlarge, then exit the photo by clicking on X at top right corner of your screen, to return to blog.
At beginning of #8 Fairway
A panoramic view of hole #11
No. 13. Now a continuous pond from tee to green
Hole #14
Normal level is 3 feet lower in our Irrigation Channel
Not a floating bridge but today it looks like one!
Hole #3. Channel is normally very narrow here, (between tree in foreground and group of trees left of it) and Willow in distance is normally right of Channel!
Willows like water but this is a bit excessive!
The diversion culvert couldn't handle it all so water flowed over earthen dam. Good thing it has a concrete wall in it or it would be gone!
Not getting to #4 tee for a while!
Or #3 Green for that matter!
I do love our bunkers in times like these. They drain very well and the flat sand doesn't wash off edges nor slopes as sand isn't placed very high up on faces
We'll have plenty of clean-up to do after water recedes...as well as re-doing many areas where we had already overseeded and spread peat.
We'll have plenty of paths to repair / restore as well.
There is a silver lining in that gray cloud that dropped all this rain and that is that it's April, it's still cool, soil temps are still low, sunlight intensity is low, it's cloudy...and we did get our growth regulator application out before this event...all good with the saturated conditions now present. Warm temps, warm soil, intense sun...we would have a much greater potential for turf loss! This flooding and the generally wet spring could result in shallower root development and reduced drought tolerance going forward but I think we may be fortunate that this flooding is happening now rather than a month or two from now!
Now, I'd like to see about that drought tolerance! Much easier to add than to take it away here in our low lying flood plain!
