The 20 Year Storm

Debris left on the 3rd Tee

#4 Fairway Bunker...notice the No Parking Sign!

#2 Cart path and #3 Pond..overflowing

#4 Bathroom, the Mud was up to the water level this a.m.

Front of #6 Tee Box

Right Front of #10 Tee Box

Sunday left us with quite a bit of clean up.  We had 5 inches of rain in 7 hours.  The winds gusted up to 20 miles an hour.  We will be trying to make sense of this place for at least the next week.  In my career here at Valencia Country Club we will have to close the course just to clean up.  We just aren't prepared for weather like this in Southern California.  One of the fortunes that we deal with at Valencia Country Club is that we are on very fertile ground.  We are at the low part of the Santa Clarita Valley, where over 1000's of years our ground has become a giant compost heap.  The negative side of this is we are the last area to thaw during frost and every 20 years when there is a storm like this we deal with all of the storm drains emptying on our course.  There is a storm drain on the left of number 5 that goes under our course and empties below the driving range by the maintenance facility.  Well Sunday the grate that covered the drain filled and blocked the water from traveling under our course.  You will see in photos that we have a tremendous amount of silt on the fairways of 1 and 10 and also in the ponds between numbers 2 and 3.  We have ducks hanging out in the new water feature in front of number 6.  We did lose a large Eucalyptus on the 10th tee.  It is surprising that we had as little tree damage as we did.  The thing about trees growing on golf courses is we make it too easy for them to grow.  We don't challenge their roots to seek water at depth.  Due to the fact that we water the surface for grass, trees roots are shallow, so when we have wind on top of soft ground they often topple.  All this to say we have some work to do around the course and it looks like another storm is on it's way!  Welcome to spring!!