Overcompensating

Someone (Mother Nature) has been overcompensating for something (the 2012 drought) this year.

A dark and very wet 7th fairway from this morning.


After last year, I vowed to not complain about rain, but it is starting to get a little ridiculous.  From April through June of 2012, we received 6.82" of rain (and only 0.35" in June) and pumped 9.5 million gallons of water through the irrigation system.  Fast forward one year... 20.47" of rain has fallen and only 1.4 millons gallons (mostly to water-in products) has been pumped.  With rain falling as I type and more in the forecast, we have officially topped 8" for the month of June.

As I had mentioned in the last post, we are lucky to have such a well draining course that doesn't have a waterway running through it.  However, the constantly saturated soils do present concerns for turf health.  Prior to the monsoons starting last week, we were actually seeing some areas in the rough drying out and these areas are those that stay the wettest the longest.  When roots can't access oxygen, they quite simply shrink towards the drier surface and that is precisely what happened.  Hopefully, the soils will drain well enough that this doesn't happen on a widespread basis to the fine turf areas, but it's a distinct possibility that could make it a difficult summer.  Luckily, it hasn't gotten as warm as was forecasted because nothing hurts roots more than boiling in waterlogged soils, and for now, we'll hope for the best.

In other news, we completed the sodding project by 18 last week and pleased with the results.  All of the rain has provided a strong test to the water diversion that was a part of this project, and we will have to make a few minor tweaks to get it functioning as we would like.  Until the roots establish and the rains stop, we will keep the sand bags in place, but they will hopefully be gone by next week.

The back left bunker on 18 is still washing out a little bit, but not nearly as badly as it has in the past.

Given the rains, we feel fortunate to have gotten the Pitch In for the Patio fundraiser and the TaylorMade Invitational completed over the past two days, and from what we've heard, both were well received.  Now, we have our fingers crossed for some dry days.