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Weather... and Its Effect on Golf Courses


HJJ003
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So I was reading this article:

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/hurricane-florence-how-golf-courses-are-bracing-for-potential-devastation-as-storm-nears

It got me thinking how Golf courses rebound from major weather events, and how the the impact of major weather events is taken into consideration during the design and creation of these courses. I have actually thought about it a lot lately after a highly ranked course near my in laws was recently damaged severely due to hail.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/hail-storm-does-crazy-amount-of-damage-to-major-championship-golf-course (Those poor Donald Ross greens!)

Have you seen great courses or local courses destroyed or severely hampered due to major weather incidents? Do you know how courses rebound from such severe events? Do course architects plan for this type of stuff or is kind  of impossible to account for? 

 

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  • iacas changed the title to Weather... and Its Effect on Golf Courses
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1 minute ago, HJJ003 said:

So I was reading this article:

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/hurricane-florence-how-golf-courses-are-bracing-for-potential-devastation-as-storm-nears

It got me thinking how Golf courses rebound from major weather events, and how the the impact of major weather events is taken into consideration during the design and creation of these courses. I have actually thought about it a lot lately after a highly ranked course near my in laws was recently damaged severely due to hail.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/hail-storm-does-crazy-amount-of-damage-to-major-championship-golf-course (Those poor Donald Ross greens!)

Have you seen great courses or local courses destroyed or severely hampered due to major weather incidents? Do you know how courses rebound from such severe events? Do course architects plan for this type of stuff or is kind  of impossible to account for? 

 

I think good course design takes into account many weather factors, specifically drainage.  Surface run-off can be directed in certain directions, and underground drains installed to carry the water away with minimal damage to the surface.  However, its extremely difficult to design for extreme events, not to mention huge additional costs if you try to cover all eventualities.  Hail, for instance, seems to me to be impossible to plan for.  What do you do, install a roof over every green?  Extreme wind events are going to topple trees, there's no way around it.  Trees go through a life cycle, wind damage is part of that natural cycle, but loss of trees in a hurricane can really alter the way a course plays.

Additionally, the ground under many courses can complicate the situation.  My home course is over pretty hilly land.  This summer we've had something like 3 times the normal amount of rainfall.  We've had springs pop up in places we've never seen before, even to the point where we've had water "bubbles" under the turf in a couple of fairway and green areas.  We can review these areas over the winter and install more underdrains where appropriate, but its nearly impossible to anticipate the emergence of springs.  We've had water ponding in several fairways, which has stressed and in some places killed the turf.  Again, drains might be installed in these areas, even though they're not needed for 9 seasons out of 10.  With good turf management, the grass will grow back.

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Dave

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Out here the worst damage I see is during the hot summer months. The greens keeper's maintenance crews will make a mistake with irrigation, and/or chemical treatments, and the hot sun basically cooks the grass to an even  brown color. If they don't recover fast eniugh, the brown grass turns to muddy areas. This happens more often than not out here. 0

High winds tend to leave debris on the courses, which is easily cleaned up. Yesterday it was pretty windy, and our local courses were irrigating  more to keep the courses from drying out. 

Rain in the desert is a good thing. Even those that cause flash flooding. Most of the courses drain well. A few will be closed until the the standing water soaks in. Maybe for a day or so.  Maybe "cart path only" for a day, or two after that.  

Bottom line is, that a greens keeper who knows how to handle various weather conditions is the most important employee on any course.

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I think it was about this time of season a few years ago, that my lot went to the Outer Banks in North Carolina shortly after they had a hurricane. This was a relatively minor hurricane compared to the one they are talking about today.

Probably three or four days had elapsed between the storm and when we arrived, and there were only minor indications that much had happened. The courses were all open. There was a lot of small branches all over the course. The greens were still pretty damp. Minor storm or not, it was an impressive job by the locals to have things so tidy in a short period of time.

We had a very nice first few days there. 

The kicker was that about half through the week mosquitoes took the place over. They were angry SOBs as well. We were pretty much shut in for the last bit of it.

 

Edited by mcanadiens
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We have had more rain this summer than usual and it has done damage to many of the Tampa area courses. I recently played a course that, in the past, has been in great shape but is now in the worst shape I have seen in years. I'll be curious to see how the courses come back when the weather cools down and gets dryer. 

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Post Katrina some of the courses were completely submerged under feet of water--salt water.  They, for the most part never recovered.  Some, a bit further from the flooding lost a lot of trees and it took them a while to get back to where they were functional.  Many are still not the same but good grounds crews do make a difference...

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Good feedback guys. I know that a lot of courses in the Kingwood area (east Houston) that got hammered by Harvey flooding took forever to recover and one of the best “value” tracks in the area couldn’t recover and eventually sold out to developers. 

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We had a lot of snow this winter.  When spring (finally) came the city decided to stem the flow of the creek that runs through my home course and into the city limits to try to limit the damage to homeowners.  

  My poor golf club had one hole nearly completely underwater for the first seven weeks of the season.  Now, even with only a few weeks left to play before the snow hits and stays again, it still hasn’t recovered.  

Corey

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  • 2 weeks later...
Note: This thread is 2004 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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