Sorry for the delay in posting this blog regarding the storm damage we experienced Saturday night at the course but things have been a little busy cleaning up the mess. There have been stronger storms to run through our area but when I arrived at the club Sunday morning preparing to shape up the course for member play, I realized very quickly we had a pretty significant clean up task ahead. The staff went about trying to get the course set up for member play. Junk had to blow from every green and tee, holes were changed and greens were mowed. I began preparing saws which would help us begin the clean up. Once the guys got the initial jobs completed, it was time to tackle our biggest obstacle. The large oak at the top of the hill on the right side of #3 green had snapped off at about 25' in the air landing on the path and stretched out almost to the fairway. Once the oak was sufficiently cleared away from the area, the fairways had dried enough from the rainfall to begin blowing off the debris that were strewn across the fairways and into the rough where the small material would be ground up by the rough mowers. The rest of the brush and sticks would have to be picked up by the staff over the next few days.
Another large oak next to the property line near #12/4 teeing area lost a significant side which fell onto the fence and into the cemetery. A large oak in the club lawn snapped at the base and a few other small trees were toppled over on property. Trees limbs of all shapes and sizes littered the roughs. Along with the clean up came more rain which has now pushed us to 5.18" of rain since July 18th which has placed us behind in our mowing and other work on the course but with a few dry days we should hopefully begin to catch up a little. This rain also has come at a time when some pretty intense heat and humidity continues to place some severe stress on our greens.
It appears that almost the complete top half of the tree fell to the ground. The tree is lying across the cart path and almost reached the fairway.
Russ sawing and Tom L. pulling branches to the chipper. It was like a jungle going into the tree. The braches were heavily covered in leaves which were wet from the evening before's rainfall. You knew you were going to get wet from sweat anyway so you just had to dive in and get it over with.
Tom M. doing the chipping of the ash tree just below the oak which a large limb ripped off. We pushed the pile of logs over to the side so the cart path was cleared and the boys could go home for the day. This was at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. We also wanted to get out of the way of our members and guests who had to listen to our chipping and grinding all morning long.
This is the large oak at the corner of #12 tee that sits on the property line between our course and the cemetery. It is a large stately oak that had a pretty significant portion of one side of the tree blown off
This side limb of the tree is about 2 feet in diameter. A pretty massive limb.
A majority of the damage has been picked up except for the tree along the cemetery.
We've chipped at least 4 dump truck loads of debris from this storm which will be utilized on the course next season.
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