2014 broke all records this year as the wettest we have ever had at Muswell Hill. I couldn't believe we broke the 2012 record so quickly. It hadn't felt that wet until December but when you look at the figures you can see we had a very wet start to the year and a very wet end. This year however we had a good summer.
In contrast 2012 had a wet summer, I remember we could only hand cut greens during the club championships that year.
The prevoius wet years were 2007, 2003 and then it's back to the Beatle era! So that's four out of the worst five years in 11 years!
In January 2014 we ended up introducing a trolley ban for the first time in 7 years. This something we don't like to do instead we ask 'to make every effort to carry your bag if you can'. We say this to try and protect the course and you know if you can or can't but it's your course!
Remember at the same time in January 18,000 people in Somerset had to move out of there homes due to flooding and Surrey suffered the worst floods ever. I saw plenty of pictures on social media of golf courses underwater for weeks.
We however were only closed for 6 days in 2014 showing that the drainage work already carried out is helping.
A lot of people say the course closes itself, which to a degree it does but we do have to protect it sometimes and the golfers on it as we have a duty of care.
Below are some of conditions that the course is in when we have had to close on those few times.
What I do find pleasing is not the pictures of the flooding (all golf courses flood including the links or top courses from the TV) but the speed of recovery to get the course open has improved year on year. The photo below is the day after the picture above just as I was putting the green back on and opening the course.
Let's hope for a little bit of a drier year this year 2015 but I will take that summer again in a heartbeat :-)
Matt
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