Stretch of dry conditions and high temperatures posed challenges for Madison golf course

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - Currently, the Madison area is roughly eight inches behind the average rainfall received at this time in the season. Now, the stretch of dry weather and high temperatures seen earlier in the month is impacting a local golf course.

In addition to miniature golf and and a driving range, Vitense Golfland is also home to a par three course on the west side of Madison. General manager Ryan Ranguette said due to a dry spell, caring for the course has been a challenge.

“This week’s been a little bit nicer for weather and growing grass,” he said. “But the last two weeks before that obviously with high temperatures and no rain, it was quite a struggle. We actually went through and started to do new irrigation heads for all of our greens to help kind of manage the water there.”

In addition to the new irrigation heads, Ranguette also described measures such as hand watering areas that were getting dry, and refraining from cutting the greens for days at a time to ensure they could keep them alive in the heat. He said being a par three, they don’t have water throughout the whole course.

“We used some wetting agents and things like that to really manage the water intake and we were kind of in survival mode,” he said. “But again this week has helped out a little bit, the little rain that we have had, things are starting to come back and green up nicely.”

Ranguette said in his seven years with Vitense, he can’t remember a dry spell like this one, but he’s looking forward to a busy summer and return to normalcy.

“With each season I think different challenges come ahead, and we just try to approach them the best we can and make sure we’re giving a good product to our customers,” he said.

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