Excessive water report

Fourteen and fifteen remain extremely wet and remain unplayable. Fourteen has shown some progress, but still has over the golfshoe sized puddles, on the fairway!! Tee side of fifteen is dry while the green side still resembles a fairway that just received three or four inches of rain. Tees and greens on these holes are excellent, fairways and rough are the problem areas. These areas have been squeeged, but within a short time, water returns.

Two weeks ago today, the great Poto flood of 2010 was at its height. Nine and a half inches of rain fell on the Potowomut peninsula, a land mass made up of gravels, sands and impenetrable ledge rock. On top of these different sized rocks sits a thin layer of soil that supports plant life.

Where did all the water travel to during and after the storm? Obviously, several answers exist.
1. Ran off as surface water into Narragansett Bay.
2. Added to ground water.
3. Filled soils to their water holding capacity.
4. Evaporation since the storm.

Two of the above methods involve moving storm water into and through the thin soil profile. As opposed to surface drainage, this is called internal drainage. Think of the soil profile as a sponge for a second. After the sponge is totally saturated, where does the excess water go? It will leak out (internally drain) at the bottom of the sponge into the sands, gravels, or ledge rock. If the water moves into a sandy or gravel layer, it will end up as ground water below the surface. Since ground water maintains a constant level, just as a water mass does (ignoring tides for this example,) ground water can and will come to the surface when levels are extremely high.

However, if the sponge (soil layer) is on top of ledge rock, the water has no place to go. The ledge acts just as a swimming pool liner does...it holds water. Additionally, if there is any slope involved within the ledge rock layer, water always flows to the lowest spots....like into lower 14 fairway and 15 green side. We believe this explains what is happening on both fourteen and fifteen.

Tomorrow, we will open up some deep holes on 15 in an attempt to entice the water to move to areas where it can be pumped away.

I hope this explains what we are facing on the two closed holes. All this waiting goes against sentiments we strongly believe in. We truly are happiest when fully open for golf. Our favorite day of the season is the day we open greens. On the flip side, we also realize that we are here to protect your wonderful asset, and know we are preventing permanent damage to the golf course by keeping players away from fourteen and fifteen at this time.

Tidbits.....To date, we have pumped a staggering 4.6 million gallons of water from the pond to alleviate flooding and to provide better drainage to holes near the pond. Last season, we pumped 12 million gallons all season for irrigation....

In the money well spent dept....Good thing we replaced that 12" pipe across the fifth fairway during the 2007 season. If not replaced, we are sure we would have lost much of the fifth fairway during the storm. The old pipe had many holes from age; that much water would have moved to underlying soils and eroded everything in sight!

We have monitored the level of ground water in our irrigation well for the last two seasons. Today, ground water was 9'6" from the surface when tested. That was the highest level of water we have ever recorded, as the past highest reading was 15'5" recorded during a wet May last year. Ground water 6' closer to the surface is significant, and helps to explain what we are experiencing.

Thanks for reading....please email or call with questions!!