Another memorable holiday weekend - Highland Meadows style.

In true HMGC tradition, another memorable holiday weekend ..... for the wrong reasons.  Repeated storms during the evening dumped another half-inch of rain on our already soaked golf course.  Unfortunately, the heavy rains were combined with high winds.  Localized gusts of up to 70 mph were reported around Northwest Ohio/Southeast Michigan.  As a result, there is a great deal of debris and tree damage on the golf course.  Combined with being a week behind on regular mowing maintenance, this is a headache we definitely didn't need.

While we are playing catch-up, the golf course will continue to be messy for awhile.  Trying to get the fairways and rough back down to their normal cutting height will leave a great deal of clippings.  Bear with us while we try to get your club cleaned back up again.

Check out some pics from Monday:

With the high heat coming Monday and Tuesday, it was imperative that we get as much standing water off the course as possible.  Multiple days with high heat and standing water will cook the grass.

A nice young maple tree between 4 and 15 snapped right off.

Our pumps ran all weekend to keep up with all the rain.

The mess behind #3 green.  Our famous "leaner" tree (that we all aim at) didn't break, but was uprooted with the soft ground.

A nearby linden, with about a 20" trunk just snapped right off.  Lindens have a very soft wood that is prone to breaking making them a rather undesirable tree.

The uprooted "leaner" tree.



The "leaner" tree is currently lodged in the crotch of another nearby linden.  For the sake of safety, we will have a company come in to get these trees on the ground.



As a great upside to the loss of the trees, there is already more morning sun shining on #3 green, which is a good thing!

The linden that snapped off was actually rotten inside.  Lindens are notorious for being perfectly healthy and unbelievably soft inside. 

A lot of general debris all over the place.  In this case another unfortunate hit to the elm trees, which took a beating in the Presiden't Day Ice storm as well.

Standing water at the bottom of #11

Many members asked me why I wasn't pumping the water in front of #11 to prevent the grass from dying.  The drains that keep the area dry actually dump into the creek.  The light-brown colored water in the middle of this picture is the result of the creek 'backing up' into the area in front of 11.  The water will not go down until the creek does, making pumping futile.