The most valuable commodity

If you were to think about what is the most precious "thing" you need to have in order to have a great golf course what would you think of? Would it be people, fertilizer, machines or maybe even pesticides? I would say a good water source. 

As many of you know the Club receives reuse irrigation water from the City of Naples. I got a phone call from the City reuse water people on Tuesday that I've been waiting for, but also dreeding. It wasn't good news, the City is out of water to supply us with for irrigation. Anyone that has lived in Naples for a while knows that this time of the year it gets really hot and really dry. 

This time of the year I can usually consume 750,000 gallons of reuse water every night to keep up with the water needs of the course. Due to the reduced flows of incoming sewer supply from the vast majority of City residence leaving to go back north for the summer, I'm lucky if I get enough reuse water to irrigate the course 3-4 days a week. Needless to say the course is going to start showing signs of drying down. 

The course a few weeks ago with plenty of irrigation water. 

The extreme potential of what could happen, but we are no where near this. Not to worry though. Once the rains come and we start watering a little more the grass will green right back up. 

As a result of the limited suply of reuse water, my team has been forced to rely on our emergency well pumps to supply water to our crucial areas of the course first, such as greens and tees, and then water whatever we can afterwards. It's important to know we only have 24 million gallons of water to last the entire year so we can go hog wild using the wells right now. If we consume the backup supply quickly and the dry period lasts for a while we will be in a pickle. 

The good news is the rainy season is just around the corner and then the City should be able to build its reserves back up and supply us the needed resource. Until then, a little brown isn't so bad.