If you walked around the grounds of Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon's Champions Course on Friday or Saturday, you wouldn't have known that the course was underwater at midweek, no thanks to the unusually rainy winter and early spring.
In the last seven days, the course took on 2.4 inches of rain, and for the calendar year, Beaumont is 3.22 inches above normal for precipitation. So after almost an inch of rain between the Tuesday practice rounds and Wednesday's pro-am, Tukwet Canyon's maintenance crew went to work pumping bunkers, removing water from greens, and getting the course into a playable condition for this week's IOA Championship.
While players are always grateful for the crews that maintain their courses, this week, a lot of credit was given to the Tukwet Canyon crew led by Superintendent Christopher Persechini.
"I came out and walked the course on Wednesday, and what we're seeing now versus what we saw then are two different courses," Savannah Vilaubi remarked after a T9 finish in her home event. "It is wildly impressive, the job they did in getting this course ready for us, and we're so grateful to them for their efforts…particularly this week."
"I applaud the golf course staff for their efforts this week," 36-hole co-leader and third-place finisher Maddi Caldwell-Young remarked. "It was underwater during the pro-am, and they've gotten rid of all the standing water that was there. The greens are soft and receptive, and they've done a great job for us."
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