How Dry is Your Course?
 

Things are getting serious. The pond that our course uses to irrigate is gettng dangerously low. Temps in KC have been in high 90s all week, with 104 predicted for tomorrow (6/28). This is crazy hot for this time of year, or for that matter, any time of year. We've only had a couple of short thunderstorms in all of June. Doesn't bode well for July or August, which are usually are hotest and driest months.

So far our course is still in pretty good shape, though the greens and tee boxes are starting to show some signs of stress. As the state of Colorado continues to burn, I'm curious how dry it is where you are, and how it has affected your course.

P.S. I know dry weather has an impact far beyond how it is affecting our golf courses - crops for instance - but this is a golf forum.

If you are in CoMo, MUTiger, I am 30 minutes north and it is getting REALLY bad. We may not have ponds on our course much longer, the way things are going. The course is hard, dry, browning, and the ponds are down substantially.


Gregory Hines. Tapping.

We got a pretty massive storm over the weekend that helped, but it was really just a drop in the bucket. Our course is well watered, so it still looks good. What really hurts our area is extended periods of very high heat. The cool weather grasses just can't handle that very well.

Our course is pretty dry but not to the point that it's unplayable. Our's is a flat links style lay out with pretty big greens, right now you have to play to the front of every green regardless of where the pin is located. Tough to hold shots with anything more than a PW.

What course do you play, MUTiger?

I played Country Club of Missouri in Columbia on Thursday and it was in great shape considering the heat, but, they are pumping the crap out of water on it.

Couple public courses I have played here in STL are hard as a rock.

CC of Missouri is a nice course. Played it last fall for the first time. I can't see it getting too bad.


Gregory Hines. Tapping.

The course I played last night was decent. The fairways and greens were in okay shape, but some of the rough was thin and hardpan.

Pevely Farms on Saturday was downright moist. I hit PW on one par 3, and my ball stopped dead. When I got up to it, I found it plugged more than 3/4 to the top of the ball. Thankfully this was in the fringe and not green.

I was looking at Pevely as a possible STL THP venue.


Gregory Hines. Tapping.

I was in the Columbia area for 24 years, but have lived in KC since 2009. I've played CCMO a few times. Glad to hear its doing ok. Home course is Winterstone.

I don't know if I've ever played a dry course.

It's been raining here for about 8 of the last 10 days. That's about average for summer!

My best buddy is the Superintendent there and since I drive across the state a lot, I play about half my golf there. Yeah, I can assure you they aren't going to let it get dry. lol

Pevely and MO Bluffs are both in decent shape given the situation.

Never played Winterstone but would like to. I am on that side of the state a lot.

Most of the courses down here are closed due to the excessive rains we have had this week...

Think you could send some of that north!!! The western part of the state is dealing with wild fires, gives you a glimpse into the lack of water!

My home course is really drying out. Rain has been in the forecast each of the last 3 weekends, but nothing has come from it.

The greens are always the toughest part of my course, but there are several right now that I don't consider playable. They are very "old style" greens with one consistent break across the entire green (no flat spots). If you don't make the putt from anywhere even or above the hole the ball doesn't stop until its off the green. Fairways are the same way. I played my 7i from 220 yesterday and it flew 155 in the air and rolled out to the front fringe. 65 yards of roll downhill.

If we don't get rain soon, I am going to need to find another course.

my home course tee boxes are getting hard as rock, and the rough is drying out. fairways are still in decent shape as are the greens although you get a lot more roll now than you would have a week or 2 ago.
we have another week of hot (100+) dry weather forecasted and I would expect that the situation will begin deteriorating pretty quickly

We have new owners at the local course who are "on site". They have a little different strategy than the last group that was out-of-state.

They seem to be drawing water from a couple of the higher elevation ponds. We are assuming these probably take the longest to replenish and provide the best gravity-aided water pressure. The lower ponds will fill back up with a lessor rain and certainly require more pumping which costs electricity as well...

The course was downright soggy two weeks ago and still fairly slow last weekend. We're between Columbus & Cincinnati, by the way...

I have a love/hate thing with dry conditions. Love them because I can finally hit the ball as far as Cookie, but hate them because our greens are already too hard to deal with some days.

We have had a lot of heavy thunderstorms over the last couple weeks so our courses are in fairly good shape. Last week the courses were pretty wet actually.

Well, most of Texas went through a record drought last year...

This year, we started better with relatively few more showers, but are trending back down to dry and hot...

So, the courses down here are about normal when you compare it to last few years. One of the courses I play frequently had four water hazards/collection areas. Only one remains and is almost all dried up.