Water can be a golf course’s best friend — or its worst enemy.
Just ask many golf course operators in Colorado following this week’s seemingly never-ending rainstorms, and subsequent flooding.
Where in past years water was desperately needed during droughts, plenty of courses along the Front Range emerged partially submerged following rainfall this week which totaled more than a foot in some areas.
CommonGround Golf Course, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA, was among the golf facilities hit hard by flooding. The course, on the border of Denver and Aurora, was an estimated 50 percent under water on Friday morning, director of golf Dave Troyer said. He noted that some of the water was 6 feet deep, with the western portion of the course by far the most affected.
The bridges next to the 12th hole “basically floated away and the pump house is under water,” Troyer said. (Pictures of the course accompany this story.)
The problem wasn’t so much the rainfall per se, Troyer noted, but the fact that the course is located in a flood-plain area where a great deal of water collected.
Though the driving range and practice facility are scheduled to open on Saturday (Sept. 14), the course is closed until further notice.
“I tend to be pretty optimistic by nature, so I’m hoping that maybe some (group of) nine holes might be open by the middle of (next) week,” Troyer said. “But we’ll have to see.”
As for the course as a whole, “we’re kind of at the mercy of how long it’s going to take to drain the water out,” Troyer said. “It’s kind of a waiting game.”
Course officials say CommonGround’s grassy areas may not be harmed significantly — once the water is drained — but there’s concern over damage in the pump house if the weather gets hot and the irrigation system is needed in the fall.
Troyer noted that he’s rescheduling events planned for the next 10 days at CommonGround. That includes a Sept. 16 boys high school regional tournament and the CGA Super-Senior Stroke Play, scheduled for Sept. 23-24. The latter tournament has been moved to Murphy Creek Golf Course in Aurora. (Updated Sept. 18: Also moving to Murphy Creek is the 5A boys state high school tournament that was likewise set for CommonGround. That event runs Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.)
CommonGround is the newest golf course in Colorado, having opened in 2009. It served as the second stroke-play course for last year’s U.S. Amateur.
Asked what he was thinking when he saw CommonGround flooding, Troyer said, “Honestly, my first thought was I made a ‘9’ on the final day (of the Colorado PGA Professional Championship in Wolcott while in contention on Wednesday), then my golf course floods.”
Among the areas the flooding spared was the CommonGround Community Putting Green, which is scheduled to be dedicated at an Oct. 4 grand opening.
(Late September Update: Also affected greatly by the flooding was Coal Creek Golf Course in Louisville. Though the practice range remained open as of late September, the course is closed indefinitely. And officials say it may not reopen until the spring of 2015.)