The winter weather has made an extreme impact on local golf courses, shutting down play for two weeks as conditions have yet to improve enough since the Feb. 16 ice storm, which has been followed by snow showers, to allow play.
“It hasn’t been open since the Monday of the ice storm,” Bo Hillard, Riverview Golf Course manager, said. “We’ve been closed ever since. ... I don’t think we ever have (been closed this long). Usually there may be a small amount of golfers, whether it be five or 10 or whatever. To not have a person for two weeks, I don’t remember any time like this.”
Hillard said clearing the courses to allow play would cause more damage than benefit, and that allowing play in the current conditions is unsafe.
“Just look out the window and pray for warmer weather,” Hillard said.
The most recent weather hasn’t caused any real damage, Hillard said, but the ice storm that passed through initially had a major impact in terms of breaking down trees. That’s something that has been an issue in Tellico Village as well, according to Toqua Golf Course Superintendent Chris Sykes.
“We’ve got a tree contractor here working right now,” Sykes said. “... We have a lot of Virginia pines, which are weak wooded, so the ice storm was devastating. So we spent this last week, last Thursday we were able to get out, and then this past Monday we were able to get out, and we just cut up a bunch of debris that was down, broken branches, so we could start hauling it in.”
Downed trees have not been the only problem at Toqua, and officials said plenty more are currently damaged and will need to be taken down.
“We’ve probably got another 20 or so trees that are damaged to the point where we’ll have to take them down,” Sykes said. “Those are all hung up on each other. We’ll bring in a contractor to handle those because it’s dangerous for my guys. Then there’s a couple close to homes that we’ll have the contractors come to take down. They’re so severely damaged from the ice storm that they’re a threat and a safety risk.”
Aside from downed threes, there is no additional maintenance needed as a result of the recent weather, at least at Riverview.
“Everything is pretty much dormant when it gets this cold,” Hillard said. “There is nothing you can do to make it any better. You can’t put down any fertilizer or any seed. You have to wait until it warms up to make it better.”
But clean up will be needed on local golf courses, officials said.
“As far as clean up right now we can’t do anything until the snow melts,” Sykes said. “But on this golf course we’ve got about three to four weeks of clean up to do just from the ice storm.”
While no more snow is forecast in the immediate future, that doesn’t mean courses will be filled with golfers any time soon, officials said.
“I don’t know when the last time was we had any golf, but it’s been at least two weeks,” Sykes said. “I was talking to Jeff Harrington, the golf professional in there, and I’d say best case we’re looking at Monday for any play, and it’s supposed to rain Monday. We have a ton of work and the place is going to be saturated and wet. It’s not going to be as much fun as normal. We’ve got our hands full.”
