{"id":432593,"date":"2026-02-18T16:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432593\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T16:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:47:08","slug":"irelands-sodden-golf-courses-hope-to-bounce-back-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432593\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s sodden golf courses hope to bounce back \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golfers<\/a> might feel hard done by these days with the amount of rainfall and the \u201ccourse closed\u201d signs seemingly perpetually up at parkland courses, with little or no end in sight just yet.<\/p>\n

In what is a numbers game, things do not quite add up when you hear statistics from Met \u00c9ireann<\/a> informing us of 47 straight days of rain<\/a> since January 1st, or that Dublin Airport \u2013 a good barometer for the badly hit east coast courses \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

No wonder many golf courses have had to stay closed to play in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

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 \u00c9ireann 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).<\/p>\n

Indeed, in 2023, some courses were closed for play for more than 100 days in total.<\/p>\n

Still, the current saturated courses \u2013 certainly in the south, southeast, east and northeast of Ireland, with the northwest avoiding much of the heavy rainfalls \u2013 have led to a large degree of frustration among golfers.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t panic,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"BetterBetter golf course management means recovery from the recent wet spell may come sooner than expected. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n

As Bedford pointed out, this heavy rain has come in January-February and courses will recover: \u201cVersus years ago, soils on golf courses are good; there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd 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\u2019t do anything about it, just circumnavigate them.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Woodenbridge Golf Club reopens after considerable floodingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you, there isn\u2019t a greenkeeper out there who doesn\u2019t want his golf course open. Some people think [greenkeepers] err on the side of caution and shut the place [for no reason], that\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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\u2019t rush to any judgment on drainage. I\u2019d suggest do all your good agronomy, and that\u2019s going to win the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

There will, most surely, be better days ahead. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golfers might feel hard done by these days with the amount of rainfall and the \u201ccourse closed\u201d signs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2204,5904,122293,101,56,54,55,126152],"class_list":{"0":"post-432593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-floods","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-met-eireann","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom","15":"tag-weather-events"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}