A really untimely and annoying downpour on Tuesday afternoon to disrupt the Pro am after so much good work went into preparations and the greens in particular running beautifully before the rain came through.  There were reports of some serious thunder and lightning activity so at least we didn't get that which would have meant that no resumption of play would have been possible.  33mm of rain was recorded with the bulk of it falling between 4 and 4.30.  The greens did pool up with the sheer volume of water but did what they are designed to do and shed the water off quickly and were playable within fifteen minutes of the rain easing back.  It was such a contrast to the magnificent morning weather and there was some pretty impressive scoring as well which would have been great to watch before the rain.  You have to hand it to the weather bureau though who predicted late rain on Tuesday 6 days prior to the event although they were only calling for 5 - 10mm.

Perfect weather to start.

10W green and you can almost see the water running off the green.

 

The rain just topped up all the puddles on the course again and helped the water table to stay at virtually ground level.  I was asked this week whether or not the root pruning machine would help get the water away which was a good question as the implement is generally sold as an aeration device with many clubs treating their entire fairways with it.  The photo below shows the RHS of 2W fairway where the pruner had gone through but the water still sits there despite a six inch deep cut being made through the surface.  The water literally has nowhere to go.  The arrows indicate the line of the slice through the puddles.

The water has nowhere to go.