Summer of
rain indeed. From one extreme to the next.
The season of 2016 was arid and this season the complete opposite, wet
and dreary. The flood rains of June 22,
2017 somewhat distort this chart but the difference in rainfall amounts per
month is remarkable. In 2017, the first
three growing months saw roughly 3x, 5x and 2x the rainfall compared to their
counterpart in 2016. The total rainfall
for May-August in 2016 was half that compared to this season.
This wet
and gloomy weather was a trend across southwestern Ontario all season
long. The longest stretch during the
months of June, July and August (typically our dry season) we went at Pike Lake
with absolutely no rain was 7 days.
Once. And 6 days, twice. Other than that, whether small amounts or
not, some precipitation did fall to the ground.
Which is remarkable when you consider the season we had last year where
we couldn’t buy a drop of rain. Both
extreme’s in Mother Nature provide different challenges for the maintenance
staff and also the golfers.
Unfortunately, this spring and even parts of summer saw a lot of cart
path restrictions. I’d like to thank
everyone for being so patient and understanding of the cart rules while the
golf course dries out. It took so long
for the golf course to dry out this season because of the constant heavy
rainfalls. The ground became so
saturated and the sun didn’t want to show itself very often therefore the
drying process was quite lengthy.
And of
course who could forget the massive rainfall received here and across Ontario
on June 22, 2017. It rained 6.33 inches
at Pike Lake during that stretch. And
entering the storm event it was by no means dry. As detrimental as is was to the golf course
and neighboring towns. It was quite a
spectacle. I, personally, have never
seen that much rainfall in a 24-hour time frame. There was flowing water in places I had never
even seen standing water. Culverts in
the farmer’s fields had water ripping through them like they were part of a mad
river. Here’s a bunch of photos
summarizing the floods.
The
first four are of the park
Here’s a couple of 13 and 14. The ponds and canals were “full” to say the
least
The pump that is on #13 was completely submerged.
Consequently, the bridges lose their footing with
the rising water levels and the bridges had to be re-placed and leveled.
Number 12 with a few new ponds
BUNKERS – the most labor intensive rebuild of the
storm was by far the bunkers. The
bunkers had just been put back together a week prior to this storm. A huge thanks to the staff involved in
putting these babies back together…again...and again
The golf course simply couldn’t handle that much
rain. Not many can. You are reminded that even during times of drought…. Don’t
forget to make sure your drainage is working.
On the left is Tori Godwin trying to determine why a storm overflow on 9
links isn’t flowing.
We pumped water from 17 pond into the big pond on
18. The photo on the left indicates the
pond on 18 having more water in it than the canal that runs through 16. That never happens.
And the photo on the bottom, ladies do not stare
directly at the gun-show please, is the pump that ran for almost 48 hours to
alleviate the flood.
That is an overhead shot of Drayton. Can you tell where the low spot is?
The photo on the right is the hail that fell on
June 25…really?
It could always be worse! Here’s a few photos of
Deer Ridge Golf Club in Kitchener. They
run along the Grand River. Jason and his team had their work cut out for them
and they successfully put their puzzle back together. Here’s a video that shows the damage from
above.
https://zzethar.wistia.com/medias/q4r196d2ra
As bad as our situation seemed we lucked out. We still had part of the golf course open on
June 23 and on June 25 we had the full course open again.
This summer and all its rain has been a trying one
not only for our maintenance staff but for the Pike Lake Golf staff in
general. It takes a lot of good people
and organization to operate this golf club at the best of times! Let alone
during a monsoon summer! Thanks to
everyone involved.
Enjoy the fall golf everyone the early forecast for
September looks great!
The Lake 9 greens were core aerified with 1/2" hollow tines at the end of October. The process went well and we were able to get sand on the greens and brushed into the majority of the holes. More sand will be applied in the spring time to top up the aerified holes. We had hoped to have the Links greens core aerified as well but unfortunately the weather didn't co-operate and the leaf operation was utilizing most of our time. Here's a couple photos of the Lake 9 greens aerification.
