Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Money Pit as some members refer!

The life blood of any golf course is water. Our irrigation lake between holes 13-15 when full, can only provide about 2 days of watering the complete golf course if it does not rain. There is water in the lake but we only have the ability to pump our lake down approximately 3' before our pump system shuts off. We are in great need to expand both the size of our lake but also the depth of the lake as well to improve our water holding capability and reduce the amount of city water we depend upon.

To recharge our lake, we must use city water. As you probably already know from filling swimming pools or from teenagers taking endless showers, water is not cheap. It is important for us to monitor our lake situation as closely as possible and turn off the outlet to the city water when ever possible. Our water bill budget is about 8-10% of our operating budget.(60k)



Many golf courses are able to use well water to recharge their lakes but we are in the unfortunate position to be in an area which has some incredibly terrible water quality which cannot be used for irrigation. There are 2-4" outlets located on the fairway side of #15 once you cross the spillway and in the right side of 9 green lake. On occasions, we have to utilize both sources to get enough water to provide for our needs. At times, some pretty serious drops in the lake will occur and it might take a couple of days to increase the water level. We understand this might not be the prettiest sight but we are being conservative in our use of this precious resource. There are times when the water will run 24 hours a day for a number of days in a row. We have been very lucky this season, the first time I think I opened the spicket was around June 26th.

The view below is from the dam on 13 fairway looking up to 15 tee box. 15 is on your left side of the picture.

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