Heavy rains affecting state courses
Posted on Thursday, April 17, 2008
At golf courses across the state, boats have replaced golf carts as the primary means of transportation.
As the wind and rain continued to pound the state in recent weeks, flood waters caused thousands of dollars in damage.
Those hit hardest included Essex Park Golf Course in Hot Springs, which lost two bridges, Cherokee Village, where severe flooding has closed the back nine, and Hurricane Country Club in Bryant, which had to clear hundreds of rocks out of a fairway. Other courses with severe flood damage included Pine Bluff ’s Harbor Oaks, Benton’s Longhills and Maumelle Country Club.
And even those escaping damage had to deal with heavily waterlogged fairways and greens.
Cherokee Village’s problems began in mid-March as waters began to rise on the South Fork of the Spring River. It caused flooding concerns for the Cherokee Village North Course, where it runs parallel at parts and dissects the course in other places.
“That water on the front nine completely covered three holes and three greens [were ] completely under water. And those are mounded greens, not surface greens. They’re built up,” Cherokee Village manager David Webb said. “We also had about 5 feet of water in our maintenance shop and our pump house.” The back nine remains shut down because the ground is so soft that course workers haven’t been able to try to fix a golf cart bridge, which is now missing a 15-foot section.
“We had two bridge concerns. We also have a little arch bridge that the water undermined. It’s concrete, but it came apart. We haven’t been able to get in there and repair that,” Webb said.
Each time the water recedes, it has come back again. Last week, it was “door knob deep” in the maintenance shop and the three front-nine holes were again under water. They are still trying to assess damage amounts.
“The 100 year flood, we had two in two weeks,” Webb said. “Right now, we have no irrigation due to the pump house going down. It’s time to aerify. We can’t aerify without water. That puts us behind the 8-ball.” Cherokee Village hopes to return to full strength in about two weeks.
Essex Park lost two bridges, one crossing Spencer Bay on the first hole, and one leading from the second tee box to the second green. As a result, golfers have had to use a bridge at the ninth hole, crossing it three different times when playing a nine-hole round.
Essex Park has nearly completed a rock bridge that will replace the missing bridge on the first hole, which was made of metal and now sits half out of the water between the first and second holes. The other bridge will have to be rebuilt at a later date. It’s remnants can still be seen at the bottom of the water.
The new bridge is expected to be completed by next week.
About the only place there wasn’t problems at Hurricane Country Club was the water driving range. Otherwise, water stood on the fairways after a tornado and heavy rains went through Benton.
“The flooding was a problem. Hurricane Creek, which runs through, left a lot of debris. The main problem that we had was small rocks, up to 5-inch rocks, on the fairway,” said Nick Birch, Hurricane’s golf course superintendent.
On the 12 th hole, the rocks were stretched over a large area of the fairway, making it look more like a gravel road than a golf course.
“We’ve had a lot of flooding, but that’s the first time the rock has come up like that,” Birch said. “The first time, we had erosion on the creek, too. So I’m not sure if it came from the bottom or the erosion on the creek banks.” It wasn’t just pea gravel. It was rocks measuring up to 5 inches in all shapes.
“I was like, ‘What the heck are we going to do ?’” Birch said. “We had to break down and go to a temp service to get guys out here for a couple of days with shovels and rakes.” Hurricane Country Club was entirely closed for two days, and the back nine was closed three days as course workers tried to get the rock, which could potentially do a lot of damage to a golf club, out of the fairway.
Hurricane Country Club doesn’t have an estimate on how much the storm will have ultimately cost the golf course.
“It’s a lot because we had a couple bunkers that the creek came through and there was no sand in them. And we had to put that 15-inch riprap rock in place of the erosion on the creek,” Birch said.
The wind and rain across the state over the past month has had an adverse affect on some of the golf courses.
A positive turn in the weather this week has allowed most to recover, but some continue to go through difficulties.
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