Golfers might feel hard done by these days with the amount of rainfall and the “course closed” signs seemingly perpetually up at parkland courses, with little or no end in sight just yet.
In what is a numbers game, things do not quite add up when you hear statistics from Met Éireann informing us of 47 straight days of rain since January 1st, or that Dublin Airport – a good barometer for the badly hit east coast courses – recorded 137mm of rain in January, compared to 73mm in the same month last year. And that the rain kept on coming, with 110mm measured at Dublin Airport up to February 14th, compared to 48mm last year.
No wonder many golf courses have had to stay closed to play in recent weeks.
But, it would seem, we also have short memories: it was only a little over two years ago that these monsoon conditions forced some courses to close in the height of the summer playing season, when Met Éireann recorded 187mm of rainfall in Ireland in July 2023 alone (more than 200 per cent the monthly average) and 154mm in September (155 per cent more than the monthly average, based on long-term data from 1991 to 2020).
Indeed, in 2023, some courses were closed for play for more than 100 days in total.
Still, the current saturated courses – certainly in the south, southeast, east and northeast of Ireland, with the northwest avoiding much of the heavy rainfalls – have led to a large degree of frustration among golfers.
“Don’t panic,” is the message from Joe Bedford, an independent management consultant who works with a number of courses, and is also the project coordinator with McGinley Golf Design, the course architect company headed by former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley.
Better golf course management means recovery from the recent wet spell may come sooner than expected. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
As Bedford pointed out, this heavy rain has come in January-February and courses will recover: “Versus years ago, soils on golf courses are good; there’s better fertilisers and courses are covered in a grass sward. Once upon a time your greens were good and your tees were good, but now your fairways are good. People are keeping fairways like they used to keep tee boxes 20 years ago and that sward of grass is hugely helpful.
“And greenkeepers are cleverer now in how they move traffic around the courses with ropes and stakes. As long as people are patient, golf courses can be worked. People accept you have your bird bath areas and we can’t do anything about it, just circumnavigate them.
[ Woodenbridge Golf Club reopens after considerable floodingOpens in new window ]
“I’ll tell you, there isn’t a greenkeeper out there who doesn’t want his golf course open. Some people think [greenkeepers] err on the side of caution and shut the place [for no reason], that’s not case at all. They know. They are customer focused and they want the golf courses open. Golf clubs have better course managers now than ever, they are trying hard.
“It is like being a football manager and you are after losing five games in a row, you are trying to come up with the solution. But it is only January, February. It is just a bad spell … and clubs shouldn’t rush to any judgment on drainage. I’d suggest do all your good agronomy, and that’s going to win the day.”
There will, most surely, be better days ahead.