We started with a great spring. Play was up, people were happy and then, they turned the water off on us, closed the taps, but even though much of the golf course was brown and dormant, people were still playing because we were still able to keep the greens in good shape.
We never got to the point where we couldn’t water the greens despite the Stage 3 water restrictions placed on us during a dry summer and it was amazing when the water did come back, how quickly the golf course bounced back.
Some areas are still struggling, but we’ll get them back by spring, It was miraculous that with just a few days of rain how green it got. Our maintenance crew deserves a lot of credit for their practices and how they weathered the storm.
Having said that, we don’t want history to repeat itself.
With the worst over for now, the club is actively looking for water on property, digging for wells. With them talking about a warm winter, there might not be any snow pack, so the possibility of it happening again is real.
They found some, but they’re going to drill in the same spot, try to go deeper to see if they can find better quality water. That’s on the priority list. I think we’d be foolish to not think it’s going to happen again.
It’s a weird situation here. We’ve got a lot of courses that aren’t on city water, so they flourished during the summer, while the ones that are on city water are actively looking for alternatives.
Nobody wants a repeat of what happened this past summer.
