Apologies  for the lack of an update earlier but with the club website down I couldn't access what I need to do the blog.  Unfortunately another 153mm of rain overnight has well and truly put us back to square one.  That takes us to a total of 833mm over the past nine days which is just astonishing to say the least.

There is water in areas I have never seen before and I don’t believe I have ever seen this much water pooled on the courses. The drains are still being monitored constantly and are working as well as they can.  We think there may be another blockage on 4R as the water is not moving there at the moment.  The entry to the drain is at least a metre under the current water level on the fairway and the only way to get to it may be to excavate it out.  This is one of the issues of the dry spell we had with trees looking for water and they can literally break through the slightest crack in a pipe.  Although in the 195mm fall of rain in January all drains were functioning.

The other issue we now have is that it has rained heavily upstream and there is a massive volume of water coming down the river and pushing in on the courses against the incoming tide.  For probably 2 or 3 days there will virtually be no such thing as a low tide as the River will maintain its level which severely restricts our drainage capabilities.

I have looked at trying to hire some big diesel pumps to assist but to no avail as they were all hired out to fight the bushfires and are now still hired out to fight the floods.  Welcome to Australia!!  We have a few small ones on hire that are doing the best they can.

A few photos from today to illustrate just how much water there is out there. 

Back to square one at 13 / 14W.

1W fairway normally never has this amount of water across it.

The photo below is on 12R looking back toward the tee from the fairway.  It shows the depth of the water across there and also across 11R to the left.  You then have the back up on 14R coming across there too.

12R.

4R.

And just because it's raining and the courses are closed the grass doesn't stop growing.  We have been able to continue mowing greens and tees and a couple of high and dry fairways.  We were also able to dethatch the River greens today and will get the West done tomorrow.  The photo below shows the boys on 18R and the amount of water on the fairway.

18R green.