Golf courses in S.C. still combating effects of flooding

More than six weeks since major flooding inundated much of South Carolina, golf courses throughout the state are still overcoming the effects of the copious amounts of water that ran through and/or swamped them.

Though nearly all of the state’s courses reopened in the first week of October within a few days of the height of the flooding, many are still combating widespread structural and agronomic issues as they attempt to return to expected playing conditions.

The flooding and its aftermath have been well-discussed topics this week at the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association 2015 Conference and Trade Show at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, which runs through Wednesday.

Aberdeen Country Club in Longs is believed to be the last course in the state to reopen following flooding.

It reopened 18 of its 27 holes on Oct. 30 after being closed for four weeks and its operators are still playing catch up. Its final nine holes are likely a couple weeks away from reopening, according to Max Morgan, director of agronomy for Founders Group International, which owns and operates Aberdeen and 21 other Strand courses, and the overseeding of fairways is well behind schedule. “We’re getting there,” Morgan said.

As difficult as some courses on the Grand Strand have had it, with up to 24 inches of rain over four days and Waccamaw River-related flooding, the hardest hit area of the state was the Midlands, including the capital of Columbia.

Overflowing rivers, creeks, lakes and ponds and the breaching and failure of numerous dams all contributed to significant flooding and damage.

“There are still courses that just opened up and we got hit [with significant rain] again last week,” said Country Club of Lexington superintendent Mark Swygert. “The water’s still real high. I think everything’s so full and saturated that when we get a 2- or 3-inches of rain, which normally wouldn’t be a huge issue, now all that water’s just … reflooding.”

Winding through the Country Club of Lexington, 12 Mile Creek was about 4 feet higher than he’d ever seen it, and expanded from a sedate 25 feet wide to a ragin 300 yards wide. Within five or so miles of the course, he said up to eight pond dams breached to add to the water totals.

In several areas of the Midlands, there are a series of dams on retention ponds along creeks and rivers for the benefit of farmers, housing developments and courses, and many were built several decades ago. “It’s basically in a series, so when you have the top one break that sends extra water and it’s almost like a domino effect,” Swygert said.

“We knew there was going to be a lot of rain, but I don’t think everybody knew exactly what it meant, and certainly didn’t anticipate shutting down I-20 and I-26.”

At the 18-hole Forest Lake Club, a private course in central Columbia, several dams failed along Gills Creek and affiliated ponds, resulting in surges of water that reached the 9-foot ceiling in the course’s pump station, rose a couple feet into the clubhouse and submerged much of the course.

The dam holding the water in Fort Jackson Golf Club’s irrigation pond was one of several dams that failed on the government base, emptying the pond and leaving superintendent Jeff Connell with limited ability to water his two 18-hole courses. “It’s on the bottom – dirt and stumps,” Connell said of the former pond.

Now using wells, he has a pumping capacity of 180 to 200 gallons per minute compared to the 2,200 gallons per minute that existed through his pump house. So he’s limited to using two sprinkler heads at a time compared to 32 previously, and is only watering greens.

“We’re limping through and making it work, and other than that everyone is happy and playing golf and everyone has a positive attitude,” Connell said. “… Golf is a refuge for them to get away and have fun. There are a few minor inconveniences but at the end of the day no one lost their lives around our golf course, no one is out of a job and they can still get out and do what they want to do.”

The original 18-hole Fort Jackson course opened in 1949 and is among those in the state that have had to fill in sink holes in fairways, which is still a daily project. “With that water churning it almost became white water, and when it did it would take just the smallest little imperfection and wash away an area the size of a car,” Connell said. “It was unbelievable.”

Connell has met with the Army Corps of Engineers about repairing his dam, but as a federal government entity, funding will have to be found for repairs at Fort Jackson.

Courses throughout the state are also having to combat unusual funguses.

The flooding and weather conditions have spawned diseases that aren’t common for the time of year or specific grasses they are striking.

One of them is Pythium blight, which creates discoloration from the size of a quarter to a softball, and it moves and spreads with flowing water.

“We see it occasionally on Bermudagrass, but it’s really a kind of a rare disease on Bermudagrass, and it’s not rare right now, particularly in the Eastern Carolinas,” said Bruce Martin, plant pathologist with the Clemson Pee Dee Research & Education Center in Florence who regularly works with golf courses on diseased grasses. “And it’s not just Pythium, it’s other foliar diseases.”

Martin said most courses have gotten diseases largely under control with treatments.

Because Bermuda is going into dormancy and in many cases is being overtaken by winter overseed grasses, some courses may find lingering damage to Bermuda when it comes out of dormancy next spring and summer.

Weather conditions surrounding the dates of the flooding have exacerbated conditions for diseases.

Chuck Green, the superintendent at Sage Valley Country Club in Graniteville, said his course endured 16 consecutive days without sun prior to the flooding, and there wasn’t much sunlight throughout October after it.

“We had already gotten saturated long before that,” Green said. “It was a combination and as they say the perfect storm … If it wasn’t raining it was cloudy and misty and foggy. We had lots of disease conditions and had to re-seed.”

As courses are still in need of sunshine and warm temperatures to continue drying out, the damage to turf may not be fully known until next summer, and the repair and rebuilding of dams on and around courses may take months if not years.

“I think we’ll be dealing with it for probably a couple years to be honest with you before everything gets rebuilt,” Swygert said. “It was just a lot of water. I don’t think anyone’s seen anything like that.”

This story was originally published November 17, 2015 at 9:46 PM with the headline "Golf courses in S.C. still combating effects of flooding."