Miracles – or, perhaps, the ingrained resilience of the club’s members – do happen, as evidenced by the remarkable turnaround of Woodenbridge Golf Club in Co Wicklow, which reopened its front nine for play last Saturday.
It is doubtful if any golf course in the country has been as badly affected by the recent run of bad weather, with images and videos of the flooding serving to highlight the challenges faced in clean up operations.
The more recent flooding has resulted in damage, mainly to bunkers, on the back nine but the aim is for that section of the course to reopen in early April.
Situated in a valley with two rivers, the Avoca and the Aughrim, Woodenbridge – going back to aftereffects of Hurricane Charley in 1986 – has had to deal with flooding of the course. But honorary treasurer Brian Redmond pointed to the “tremendous resilience” of the club membership in responding to setbacks.
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The course was flooded in November and more recently at the tail end of January. But an army of members literally rolled up their sleeves for the cause in clearing the course of debris, stones, silt and timber left by the retreating floodwaters.
“We have learnt a lot from past floodings and we are very resilient. We have very efficient plans in place to deal with any flooding and, in the more recent spell of extreme weather, we had up to 60 volunteers at a time helping with the clean up efforts,” said Redmond, who remained confident the course would be fully ready for the golfing season ahead.
