Stacy Kleve, the head pro at Pelican Lakes and Pelican Falls golf courses, is optimistic about the recovery of the Windsor, Colo., properties, with staff springing into cleanup mode last week. “This is the worst flood I’ve seen here,” Kleve said. “You just can’t do anything until the water recedes. It is a completely helpless feeling.”
Pelican Lakes Golf Course in Windsor, Colo., took a beating during the floods that ravaged the state, but its head pro was hoping to have golfers swinging their clubs over the weekend, Windsor (Colo.) Now reported.
Stacy Kleve, head pro at the 18-hole Pelican Lakes and the 9-hole Pelican Falls golf courses, said his staff spent September 18 in a cleanup mode, washing off and pumping water from the fairways and putting the semi-private course of 400 golf members back together, Windsor Now reported.
From the time the rain started until the courses reopen, Kleve said it will be close to two weeks of no golfing because of the rain and flooding, Windsor Now reported.
According to a report by CNN, the rain began September 10, with an inch recorded in Boulder. Nearly two inches fell the next day. Then on September 12, Boulder recorded 9.08 inches of rain, nearly double the city’s previous one-day record, and almost half of its 20.5-inch yearly average.
“It’s a mess,” Kleve said. “Multiple holes were kind of under water, some a little worse than others. It’s kind of messy work.”
Washing the silt off the grass was a top priority, Kleve said. “Hopefully, we save the grass. That’s kind of the mission.”
Holes 3, 4 and 5 on the east side of the course were hit hard, and holes 12 and 13 on the west side also were affected the most by the flood waters, Kleve told Windsor Now.
“They were completely under water, pretty much. Three and 5 are in really bad shape right now,” Kleve said. “We’re trying to put it back together.”
No greens were affected, Kleve said, and there was no real displacement of the course, Windsor Now reported.
“It’s just a matter of putting it back together in playing shape,” Kleve said. “My guess is the front nine will be ready in another week, and the back nine open and the falls open by (this) weekend.
“We have a big pump, and we pump the water out back into the river and get it low enough so the water doesn’t cook the grass. Hopefully, we can save some of that grass.”
Kleve has been working at the course for 11 years. The snow melt and spring run off and rain in 2009 or 2010 caused the Poudre River to flood the course, but it was nothing like the recent flood, he told Windsor Now.
“This is the worst flood I’ve seen here,” Kleve said. “I heard it’s a 500-year deal, and it made sense. There was water coming over on spots that I’d never seen. It was quite a sight how much water was coming down here.
“You just can’t do anything until the water recedes. It is a completely helpless feeling. We couldn’t do anything until the water was below the banks.”
Thousands of dollars of business will be lost because of the courses being shut down, Kleve said, adding that it still could have been worse, Windsor Now reported.
“The grass will kind of be a little bit yellow, but it will slowly come back,” Kleve said. “The engineering of the course and how the water flows did what it was supposed to do. No homes got flooded to my knowledge and nothing else got touched.”
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