Drought Conditions

Hello everybody, I am back. I apologize for not posting more regularly. What has been happening?- lately it has been very dry.  It has actually been dry all year, yet we have not really seen the extent of the drought until the last few weeks. We are doing our best to keep up with the lack of water but as you can see there are numerous "dry areas" on the course and the ponds are getting low.
Water restrictions have started in areas very close to us and it is just a matter of time before there is a Level 2 condition declared for this area. This means stopping all non-essential watering and a 20% voluntary reduction for water users with a Permit to Take Water. Golf courses fall into the latter. We will start conserving  more water as a result. This will mean taking less water from the deep underground aquifer and more from the storage ponds. We only have so much water to irrigate with and we will prioritize the greens followed by tees and fairways. Fairways and tees will continue to be irrigated but certain "hot spots" will go dormant. This will not affect the long term health of the grass and or playability. In fact firm fast conditions will be much more common in the future as we realize lush green conditions all the time are not sustainable or necessary. If you notice some PGA events on television (especially the British Open) you will notice similar conditions at times and everyone is quite happy with this.
Thanks for reading and wish for some good rains - at least at night!
Until next time...
David  
well