Ohio Golf Journal July 2020

Midland Michigan’s Currie Golf Course Recovers After the Flood As if Currie Golf Course inMidland wasn’t dealing with enough challenges thrown at the golf industry in 2020, the Midland region experienced a flood of biblical proportions on May 20. After two days of extremely heavy rains, two dams that held back the waters of the Tittabawassee River to formWixomandSanfordLakes bothgaveway, allowinga tsunami ofwater toflooddowntown Midland and the Currie Golf Course. Course officials had been alerted to an impending flood and moved the equipment to higher ground and took other flood precautions, but they weren’t prepared for the severity of the flooding when the dams broke. Flood level for the Currie Golf Course is 18 feet. The water crested at 28 feet, causing parts of the course to be submerged under ten feet of water. The Midland Fire Department used a boat to take Currie General Manager, Paul Milholland, to view damage to the clubhouse two days after the initial flooding. “I have never seen so much mud in my life,” Milholland said. “Everything was covered with slippery, slimy mud.” Once the water abated, several inches of dirt and debris covered fairways and greens and had to be removed as quickly as possible. Fred Altvater Ohio Golf Journal