COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) -- A flood last winter submerged much of the Kentuck Golf Course in North Bend, and the course has been struggling to bounce back ever since.
For 48 days, the course was under water after a dike was breached during extreme high tides on Dec. 27, allowing water from Kentuck Inlet to flow through.
The course was unplayable until the middle of May, and the more heavily damaged back nine remained closed until July 1.
Now, aside from some brown patches in between the fairways, a golfer on the 12th tee would have difficulty seeing lasting impacts from the flooding.
But Course Manager Wally Culp, whose grandparents opened the facility in 1964, said the use of the facility is down by as much as 55 percent this season and repairs cost him upward of $35,000, with more to come.
"Half of the golf season was over by the time we were completely opened," Culp said. "It's still another year before the grass comes all the way back, but we were lucky it wasn't all salt water. Then everything could have died."
Work crews from Coos Bay Timber Operators quickly patched the dike, but damage to Culp's water pump prevented the brackish mixture from being completely drained until mid-February.
A golf course expert determined that "all the grass basically died from oxygen starvation because it was under water for so long," Culp said.
Although his insurance covered repairs to the damaged dike, Culp had to shoulder the expense of reseeding and aerating nine fairways.
The golf season, which normally runs from late April until the first rains of October, was barely in full swing by the time Culp had the front nine ready. But word had apparently spread into the golfing community about the condition of the turf.
"I think people would drive by and see part of the course in bad shape and tell their friends, so even though we were partially open, a lot of people thought it wasn't," Culp said.
Culp is fairly confident repairs made to the dike will prevent a repeat of last December.
"I think we have a handle on it," he said. "I hope."
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
