Golf courses, sports fields too soaked for play
Wet playing fields and washed-out games mean leagues are well behind schedule
A long weekend off work isn’t what Roseland’s head golf pro Randy McQueen is looking for at this time of year.
Heavy rains meant the 18-hole golf course was closed all weekend and remained shut on Tuesday. “We haven’t been open since Friday, ” McQueen said. “We’ve lost a lot of days to rain. Combined with no golf in March, it’s been horrible.” McQueen said Roseland has already lost 11 days to rain. Cold weather forced a late start to the area’s golf season and now wet weather is playing havoc with not just golf leagues but those for soccer and baseball as well. Just at the mid-point of the month, this area has seen 114 millimetres of rain so far in May. The average rainfall for the entire month is 89 mm.
“The rain has certainly caused some city wide closures (of fields),” said Trese MacNeil, the city’s coordinator of community sports services.
All city fields were closed through the weekend and remained closed Tuesday. “It gets a little challenging when you’re trying to reschedule games,” MacNeil said. “Because it’s so early, we’ve still got time. If we were losing a lot of game time in late May or early June, it would be more challenging.”
The Can-Am Baseball League delayed starting the season until Wednesday for other reasons, but now soggy weather may push that even further back.
“Even our batting cage has water in it, which is unusual,” said Windsor Stars manager Ron Smith. “We’ve lost practice time but not games. Not yet.”
District Five Little League is also just ramping up its season. “The rain has been well-timed in that it’s been on the weekends,” said District Five administrator Kathy Recchia. “We’re losing lots of practices but not a lot of games. I’ve had to cancel a few games but it hasn’t been bad. If this was June, I’d have a different answer.” Larry Palazzi is busy trying to reschedule games for teams in the Essex County Soccer Association. Normally, he’ll reschedule 80 to 100 games over the course of an entire summer but he’s already at more than 20 games just a few weeks in. “I’ve never seen it this bad, this early,” Palazzi said. Windsor experienced its coldest April on record and that month also featured above-average totals of rain.
Ryan Peltier, the head pro at Erie Shores Golf & Country Club in Leamington, said his course has already lost “at least 10-12 days and that’s probably conservative. It’s been abnormally wet this spring. We just keep waiting for the weather to break, but it hasn’t happened yet.” The wettest May on record for Windsor was in 1943 when 194.8 mm of rain fell.