Flood clean-up

The flood water has receded from its crest and the clean-up has begun.  Tomorrow the water that is still remaining should be gone and we can finish the clean-up of debris that the river brought onto the course.

Most of 8, 9 and 18 where underwater and, as usual, leaving a trail of debris at the high water line.

Flood damage

In celebration of US Open weekend, we decided to go "brown" here at FCC.

The flood waters on 8, 9 and 18 have receded, leaving us a silt covered course.

Larger puddles were removed from the course this morning, what's left will slowly drain away.  Any debris was also cleaned up. The silt on the turf will soon dry and get mown off.  I expect minimal turf loss due to this flood - a little on 8 and 18. 

 

All holes are open this weekend, barring anymore rain.  Cart traffic will be limited on 8 and 18.

Flooding

As I am writing this, we are flooded and rain continues to fall.  1, 8, 9, and 18 are unplayable, carts have been restricted and the range has been closed for the last few days because of standing water and soggy conditions.  We are mowing what we can, spiking greens when needed and will be pulling the irrigation pumps from their perch shortly.

In preparation for the flooding, everything that could possibly float away was removed from the area.

Currently, 8 and 9 are underwater, 18 is mostly covered.

 

8 green is half under as of this morning.

A deadly disease - Pythium - showed is ugly head yesterday.  This disease spreads quickly and is typically spread through the movement of water - ouch!  Good thing we sprayed a preventive fungicide application yesterday on all the fairways, we should be protected but may see some breakthrough due to the high pressure.

 

Flood repair

The course's frequent flooding causes the Grounds staff to spend time on repairs when needed .  This week we added rip-rap to the area underneath the bridge by 8 green/9tee.  The soil in this area was washing out a little bit every time we flooded.

To keep our equipment in good condition, we decided to load the stone by hand.

The stone was then placed under the bridge by hand, adding some stability to the area.

 

Winter damage

I guess it's not really news anymore, everyone is used to seeing and hearing about it, in case you haven't heard - the course had moderate flooding this past weekend.  I don't want to make a huge deal out of this every time we flood, but in the culture of full disclosure and communication - this is the 4th flood we have had in 10 months, all of them being in the top 50 floods for Findlay:

April - 17th

July - 34th

December - 8th

February - 44th

 

18 Fairway

Behind 18 green

We will be back to work with the clean-up efforts as soon as the ice melts away.

 

 

This winter has been tough on our greens.  This is a patch on 7 green, patches of turf did not make it through the winter.  Most of the greens look great as of now.  Greens 1, 7 and 12 look a little rough.  7 green lost turf just from the stresses of winter, 1 green lost turf due to snow mold and 12 is browned in areas due to the extreme cold temps we saw.

12 greens looks bad, but as of now I don't see dead turf.  You can see that portions of the green are brown.  This is exactly the areas that we had to add snow to the green a few weeks back.  The green areas are spots that had enough snow cover to insulate the greens from the cold temps, the brown areas are spots that had little snow cover and the tips of the grass blades died.  The turf is still green under the brown tips.  This is a good sign that the plant will make it through winter and grow out of the damage in spring.  A few other greens have similar symptoms, not near as extensive as 12 though.  Overall we are looking fairly good as of now - no major turf loses - just areas that will have to be "babied" as we go into spring.  We have about 30 more days of this cold/stressful weather, let's hope we can get through the remainder of it with no further damage.

 

 

 

 

Flood Clean-up

Today we were finally able to get outside and do some flood clean up.  The recent weather and snow has deterred us from getting the debris cleaned up in a timely matter.  The good news is that nobody is around to see the debris anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

It looks like up to an inch of snow tonight, this will impede our progress again seeing that we can't rake up debris that is covered in snow and can't see.

 

As the ground continues to freeze, we will transition into more tree removals and if the weather turns sour again, we have plenty of work to do indoors to prepare for next year.

 

 

Current Flood Status

This our third flood in 9 months - April, July and December.  This one will just beat out April's flood as the higher of the three.  We are currently at 13.5 ft and I expect the water to go up another foot and a half yet.  The course received 3.2" of rain over the last 48 hours.

 

1,8,9,17,18 are under water.

We pulled the motors yesterday, I'm glad we did.

One more foot of water and the motors would have been ruined.

 

Flooding preperations

There is not much that we can do to prevent flooding, but there are a few things that we can do to prevent damage or loss.  Yesterday we pulled out all our green stakes and fish line from the river perimeter.  These stakes were there to deter geese from entering the property.  With the threat of flood, I would rather not let the stakes all float away.  Also today we have pulled the irrigation motors up from the river.  The National Weather Service has continued to increase it's prediction on the cresting height of the Blanchard in Findlay.  Yesterday it was 13.6ft, this morning it was 14.5ft and now the prediction is 15.5ft.  At 14.5ft, the water would rise enough to cause damage to the irrigation motors.  That is why we have raised them off of the river already.  Once this passes and dries out, we will begin clean up efforts.

Storm Clean-up

We are in the process of cleaning up last nights storm.  We got another 1.5" and lots of wind.

10 approach

Hickory down by 18 green

1 Fairway

5 Fairway

16 Fairway

Spruce down by 16 Fairway

Maple down by 17 Fairway

Debris on 2 tee

Ducks on 8 Fairway

2 days ago, I rented a 3" pump.  I had a hunch we might need it.  It is coming in handy right now - good thing we got it when we did, it would be hard to locate one now.

I want to thank Chad and his staff, currently we have 7 of his guys out here helping us with the clean-up efforts.  We are getting a lot done in a short amount of time.

 

 

Minimizing the damage

From a distance, the golf course looks good out there - nice and green.  As you drive around, you start to notice how wet it really is.  Today, most of our activities were about minimizing the damage done by the recent weather.

We had guys squeegeeing off fairways all day, keeping the puddle off the fairways.  If water sits too long on hot days like this, the turf will die.

We aerified all the greens, opening up air channels to help the roots get much needed air.

We started spiking fairways, again - getting air to the roots.

When it rains like it did last night, and as puddles form, grass clipping congregate around the puddles.  As the puddle recedes, it leaves a pile of clippings.  If left on the fairway too long, this will also kill grass.  We went to each fairway to clean up these piles.

We made a timely fungicide application to the greens to help combat the the things we don't want to see around here.  With this hot and humid weather, an outbreak can easily occur.

Believe it or not, we actually mowed some of the wettest fairways today.  Some of these fairways have not been mowed since Friday.  All the fairways were supposed to be mowed Monday morning, but with the rain, we were only able to mow the drier ones.  If more rain comes tonight, we might not be able to mow the rest of them until Saturday.  By that time the fairways will be 3" long.  We are doing the lesser of 2 evils and mowing them today.  It is no doubt leaving a mess, but it is nothing that can't get washed away.

 

After a rain like this, I would like nothing more than to send my guys home and keep all traffic off the course.  But with the heat and humidity we have no choice than to make a few mud tracks and minimize the damage.

Another post about rain

We've now had consistent, and by that I mean daily, rain since June 25.  This weekend another 1" fell on the course and last night we got 2".  This brings our total to 7" in the last 14 days - that is 2 months worth of water.  The puddling around the course has not been that bad until last night.  This was due to the frequent but relatively small amounts of rain we got.  Although there have not been puddles, this has made the ground saturated because of the fact that it has all soaked in.

Today the course is closed.  We are going to spike the greens again to let them breath.  We will also be removing the water from the fairways and fixing all the bunkers from last nights storm.

There is a chance for rain the next few days.  If we don't get more rain, we will be open tomorrow but carts will not be allowed.  We will re-evaluate for Thursday.

8 fairway

Squeegeeing off 5 fairway

Current water level on 18

 

 

Clean up

This morning was the start of the clean up efforts from the flood.  We will continue the clean up tomorrow morning and should have everything picked up by Tuesday.  I don't anticipate any loss of grass from the flood. 

 

 

 

Tomorrow the course will be open to walkers only on holes: 10,11,12,13,14,15,4,5,6,7.

 

Flood waters

The golf course received 1" of rain overnight to bring the total to 3.5" in the last 40 hours.  The flooding is now covering 6 different holes along the river.  Over the last 2 hours, the waters have not risen any higher, I think we have seen the worst of it. 

The course and the range will be closed today, but will open tomorrow for walkers.  Walkers will be allowed on the course tomorrow starting at 8:30. We will have an alternate route because of the flooding. The walking route tomorrow will be: 10,11,12,13,14,15,4,5,6,7.  No carts will be allowed.

 

 

Looking over 18 green/fairway.

 

2 tee.

 

On 2 tee looking onto 1 fairway.

 

16 tee.

 

The water should start receding this afternoon.  We will begin our cleanup efforts tommorow.