Splitrock floods McHardy Park, city golf course - again

McHardy Park and the Brandon Golf Course are under water – again.

This week’s multi-day rainfall, which added up to between 6 and 8 inches, will negatively impact the golf course’s bottom line and leaves city staff with a whole lot of clean-up at the park and at the golf course.

At 8:40 a.m. Friday, the public was notified through the city’s Textedly message system that McHardy Park was closed due to flooding, and would remain closed until further notice.

Shortly after the notice, parks supervisor Devin Coughlin and two members of his staff were at the park surveying the all-too-familiar floodwaters.

“You could just use your pictures from this summer,” Coughlin said.

The city park and rec supervisor said he checked McHardy Park about 9 p.m. Thursday. At that time, just a small pool of water had surfaced at the bottom of the sledding hill. By Friday morning, the Splitrock River had once again spilled out of its banks, flooding a large share of the park.

Coughlin was disheartened to see plastic bottles, plastic bags and other refuse collecting along the ballfield’s backstop fence. Coughlin said he didn’t foresee the floodwaters coming, therefore, garbage cans and picnic tables were left in place.

“Now it’s an even bigger mess,” he sadly said.

At the course, hours of staff time and dollars of grass seed, floated away as water from the Splitrock overtook the Nos. 10, 11, 12 fairways and created a soggy barrier around the No. 18 green in addition to flooding other areas of the course.

BGC manager Zane Swenson said this is the first time the course has flooded twice in one season.

“This is a first,” he said Friday morning, hours before the Splitrock was expected to crest at 12.2 feet Friday afternoon.

“Hopefully it goes down quicker than the last time this happened,” Swenson said. “Unfortunately, we just reseeded nine fairways. Now, we have to wait and see how fast the water recedes from the course and we’re hoping that we don’t have to pump water off the course again.”

As of Friday morning, four holes at the course were under water: 10, 11, 12 and 18.

For the most part, Swenson said, scheduled outings have wrapped up for the season. The Lynx boys’ golf team is scheduled to host the Metro Conference Championship next Tuesday. Swenson said it’s possible the tournament will still be played.

“Right now, we would allow golfers to walk a few holes – mainly the front nine - but we’re not allowing carts,” he said.