The need people have to come together and help their friends and family in times of hardship was proven once again this week with the support given to a flooded TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club.
Bob Currie, superintendent at TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club, said shortly after the course was flooded in a massive thunderstorm that dropped upwards of five inches of rain on Estevan last Sunday he received a call from White Bear Golf Course superintendent Larry Palmer asking if they could use a few pumps to help move the large amounts of water that had accumulated on the course. After Currie accepted the offer, they received a few more only to politely decline knowing they had all the equipment needed to tackle the flood.
“Then we've had volunteers (with) some of them being some of our employees here and some of them being some of the companies in town that sent a couple guys down for a couple hours here and there,” said Currie. “Then just some of the kids who were supposed to be playing in the junior tournament, they took off their golf shoes, put on a pair of work shoes and they came down and helped as well.”
TS&M Woodlawn Golf Club was supposed to host the Saskatchewan Junior Boys and Junior Girls Championships this past week with the opening day tee off set for early Monday morning with many participants from across the province arriving in Estevan before the storm hit. After the flooding, Golf Saskatchewan announced the tournament had been postponed to July 18-20 and moved to the The Legends Golf Club in Warman.
Currie said the fairways on Hole 5 and Hole 7 as well as a good portion of Hole 9 were underwater after the storm, but the state of the second and third holes were unknown due to the fear of ruining anything if they ventured out there to take a look. He said the back nine drains a little better than the front nine, but Hole 16 was still covered in water.
“It's got lots of little pockets and it was really full,” he said. “Around 14, the path was about a foot underwater. On 15, the path again was about a foot underwater and we've been pumping all those areas out and we've been getting a little closer to having things dried out a little more normal.”
The expectation was the course would have to remain closed until July 15 in order to fully clear all the water off with the continuing rainfall during the week meaning they have had to cycle back to previously cleared areas to redo them.
Currie said they employed four floater pumps, which moves 500 gallons of water a minute off the course, two three-inch pumps that move about 250 to 275 gallons of water a minute and a couple of smaller pumps for sand traps and small puddles in the effort to clear the course. He said their biggest job with the flood was to rebuild all of their bunkers because the hard rain washes the sand down exposing the clay and fill, which then mixes in with the sand making the bunkers very hard within a couple of days.
“I'd like to thank everyone for their patience while we get this going,” said Currie. “I know we don't have control over Mother Nature, but we'll get her back together as quick as we can.”
