Certainly glad that this week is over although there is still a massive amount of recovery work to be done, particularly on the West course as we prepare for the NSW Ladies Open which is three weeks away.  

Unfortunately we have had three separate irrigation pipe failures in the past thirty six hours and have had to re-prime the irrigation lines three times as well as effect the pipe repairs.  Lots of man hours away from other duties and that's the reason players would have seen sprinklers operating during the day as we purge air from the system.  The downside of this is that without pumps we can't lower the irrigation dam which is a pivotal drainage point for a number of areas, none more so than 2 and 12W fairways, so they are staying wet.  We were able to get a few West fairways mown today but as with the River course there are six fairways we haven't been able to drive on yet.  The mid-morning high tide isn't helping with some inundation happening and the water table staying so high that the last bit of drainage from the surface is being delayed.   As a consequence of the still very wet conditions the decision was taken today to not allow carts on the River and to close the West over the weekend.

But I can't help spare a thought for some of the other clubs on the east coast who have also flooded again for the second time in a month.  As I mentioned last time we normally have ''clean'' floods with just some debris coming on to the courses and no silt.  Most other courses have just got all the silt off them and were nearly back to normal and have had to start all over again.  It is absolutely heart wrenching for their staff as it is for CTH staff who had 80% of the West bunkers restored only to have them all washed away.