Some are saying that last night's storms are likely to be just the beginning of another very wet pattern for Central Texas, and with the recent headlines from England, Asia and Texas, about rising flood waters, I thought you might be wondering what you could expect to see after a recently planted golf course received 19 inches of rain in a short 6 hour time span, which by the way is a 500 year storm, and has had 50 inches of rain since January, which is above the yearly average of 32 inches.  That’s what I wondered last week when I drove into The Club at Waterford, which is located just outside of Marble Falls, Texas, to check on one of my latest golf course designs.  

 

Following several of the major rain events, I spoke with Bill Hanna, Waterford’s golf course superintendent, and he assured me that the course had faired well.  Yet, as I drove east on Highway 1431, I began to see signs of high water several feet above the road, and a little further on, I saw crews repairing the roadway where water had washed out the asphalt and wet weather creeks once so overgrown that you hardly knew they were there, now wide open 30 foot wide channels wit exposed rocky ledged waterfalls.   As I once again marveled at the power of water, I began to wonder if the mental picture I had developed for the way Waterford would look was accurate or had I underestimated the impact of the water on the course.

 

Putting aside the runoff, another issue for the course was the rising water level of Lake Travis.  Flood waters and debris kept boaters of the lake and submerged the three holes closest to the lake.  It seems unimaginable but a few short months ago when we were in the midst of an extended drought when for several months at the end of 2006, Travis hovered around 645 feet above sea level, which is 35 feet below normal.  With the lake level rising to 695 feet above sea level, portions of the fairways were underwater for several days.  Now that the LCRA is lowering the lake at the rate of a foot a day, on the day that I visited the course, the lake was currently 685.  

 

I met Bill at the maintenance facility located at the highest portion of the course and we started our tour.  For the first several holes, the major damage was confined to a rock wall on the creek left of the eighth green.  About 40 feet of the wall had fallen, but it had done its job and protected the green from erosion.  The other damage on holes 6, 7, 8 and 9, such as silt on cart paths, erosion in turf areas that were not well established and washing along the entry to the eighth green, was to be expected.   When we crested the ridge at the ninth green and overlooked Lake Travis, I got a full impact of the level of the lake.  Miraculously there was relatively little damage to the course considering the amount and velocity of water.

 

The major damage was the result of break in a main irrigation line.  The line had ruptured due to the velocity of the water from the adjacent stream pushed the pipe up and because the stream was so inundated with water, left the line several feet underwater for days.  To exacerbate the problem, this line supplied the entire back nine.  With all the rain, this doesn’t sound like much of a problem, but when you are trying to grow in bent grass greens in the summer; it makes for a very difficult situation.

 

Other damage included a bridge that decided it wanted to become a boat and floated down number 18, two stone dams that lost some rock that will have to be replaced and numerous bunkers that were submerged and need to be repaired.

 

The question that I cannot answer to day is how will the newly planted submerged grass fair.  Early indications are that the zoysiagrass suffered little, if any, damage, but the drought tolerant buffalo grass does not seem to have tolerated the dunking as well and has gone severely off color.

 

What made Waterford stand up to these record rainfall events so well?  A combination of factors, the property being close to the head of the watershed, proper placement of the course relative to the creeks, good materials in the bunkers, and no major blockage of the creek flow during the storm.  In designing a course, you never design drainage for an event of this magnitude; however, by designing for good drainage and water movement, the course has the best chance of surviving catastrophic events.  Moral of this story, if you course has poor drainage, give me a call and lets remodel.