City courses hit pause button in wake of Cyclone Mandous

CHENNAI: TWO popular club-level tournaments, scheduled for December 17 and 18, were postponed, thanks to the disruption caused by Cyclone Mandous. The Gnanodhaya Trophy at the TNGF and the Gardner Memorial at the Madras Gymkhana (MGC) Golf annexe were called off as the courses had to undergo repair works, after last week’s rain and cyclonic winds.

Monsoon matters

November and December are months when people in Peninsular India, especially the East Coast, are filled with, for want of a better phrase, mixed feelings. This is the time of the balmy winter sun and festivals, the music season and sabha food. These are joyous events and expectations. It is the vagaries of the North East monsoon which is so vital and has yet often been a great disruptor of normal life, that causes the anxiety.

Scarcity of rain and super abundance have alternated over the city and its reservoirs. Plans of any outdoor event factor in the weather in these two months. Traditionally, cricket matches are not scheduled in Chennai till January. Weather forecasts have been becoming more and more scientific and IMD faces stiff competition from private weather forecasters and is eagerly followed like a cricket match.

This November witnessed a series of receding forecasts with the onset of heavy rains getting pushed by four to six hours every four hours and finally not materialising. Cyclone Mandous obliged – just about – and the city was in full readiness to brace the fury.

Unlike the earlier storms which felled thousands of trees, Mandous, by comparison, felled fewer trees in the city. At the TNGF, a few trees fell. However, a huge number of branches snapped and fell on the wet fairways. Bunkers too bore the brunt of nature’s fury. Removal of debris and clearing the ground after the sun came out have been a long haul. At the MGC, fairways on back nine were water logged. Bunkers needed tending to. Grass grew like the proverbial Jack and the bean stalk, rendering the course unplayable.

Ground reality

Legacy golf courses such as the MGC and the TNGF have to work within the ambit of the terra firma and its inherent properties. Stagnant water has to be pumped out, bunkers have to be combed back into shape and most importantly, teeming bugs and insects of various types, which made the course their breeding ground in the interim, have to be dealt with.

The course workers’ task is complicated as a break in rain does not mean that they can start the recovery work at once. Unlike the cricket matches, when the super sopper gets working as soon as there is a let up, golf course managers are governed by soil conditions; they are also concerned about the forecasts – having learnt from experience that during the wet season, three days of clearing and sprucing up can be undone by half-a-day of showers. As Mandous meandered away, there was forecast of another system developing in the South East Bay, which meant the recovery crews had to hit the pause button.

The tournament season is already delayed and slightly disrupted and the bright sunshine that followed the rains should have cheered the hearts of all golfers in the city. The MGC course is open for play. The Cosmo TNGF will open for play on Monday. Golfers are hoping that the tournaments would roll out as per schedule and are awaiting information on rescheduled dates of tournaments that were postponed due to the rain, especially those like the Earth Sense Trophy, which is a qualifying event for the Rajah of Parlakimedi Cup.

(The writer is the Lady Captain at Cosmo TNGF)