Rain? No problem. Seacoast golf courses 'busy no matter what'

PORTSMOUTH — Despite what has been an unusually rainy spring and early summer, golfers have continued flooding to the Pease Golf Course this year.

Golf pro Mike Jerram says the rain has not deterred golfers from coming out to play on Pease’s 27 holes.

“In reality, this place has gotten to a point where we’re busy no matter what,” Jerram said as he and other Pease Golf Course employees readied for what was expected to be a busy extended July 4 weekend. “If the course is open, people will show up, with the exception of those rare full wash-out kind of days.”

“Rain and storms don’t really deter people,” he added.

Pease Golf Course is “averaging more than 400 rounds a day,” Jerram said. “And we’re still on pace to shatter some of the numbers we’ve had in the last couple of years. The rain hasn’t really affected us that much.”

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Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, if Pease “hit 400 rounds a day, it was a huge day,” he said. “Then with COVID everyone started playing more golf.”

Since then they’ve had days where they had more than 550 rounds, he said.

“We’ve never broken 600 yet during a day, but I won’t be surprised if it happens here,” he said.

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On Memorial Day weekend, Friday through Monday, according to Jerram, “we did over 2,000 rounds, which is pretty much unheard of.”

“To have consecutive days over 500, it’s amazing,” he added.

Pease opened up two to three weeks later than normal this spring because of a mid-March winter storm.

“People were cooped up wanting to play, so when the course did open, they were ready to go,” Jerram said. “It’s been non-stop ever since.”

Most golfers so love the sport that they’re not going to let rain or showers keep them off the course in most cases, he said.

Rain makes for great course conditions

Plus, Jerram said, the frequent rains have left the course in “phenomenal condition.”

“It’s as good as I’ve seen it, I can’t think of when it’s ever been better,” he said, while noting that maintenance crews also aerated some fairways and rough areas, which has helped the green grass look even better.

He credits Pease’s success on the condition of the course, the fact they offer 27 holes – including nine on the Blue Course – and its location at Pease, just off Route 33 and near the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease.

He stressed the course offers great value.

“We don’t try to out-price people. We try to cater to everyone, from women’s Wednesday to discounts for seniors, military and veterans,” he said. “We have juniors who get to pay their age if they’re under 19. It allows everyone to play here.”

All the spring and early summer rain has saved the course substantial money on irrigation costs, Jerram said.

Record-breaking rain

Derek Schroeter is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.

During an interview Friday, he confirmed that this has been an unusually rainy season from April 1 to the end of June in the Seacoast area.

For example, a location in Rochester where they’ve been measuring rain totals since 2000, reported 15.62 inches of rain during that period.

“That’s the third wettest period in that data record in the last 24 years,” he said.

Many of the rain events were associated with thunder storms that could be “hit or miss” depending where they touched down, Schroeter said.

He called the rain the area has seen in the April-June time period “a pretty big number,” only surpassed in 2005 and 2006.

Meanwhile in Manchester, there were only six days in June without any precipitation, he said.

“So that’s 23 days of precipitation during June,” he said, acknowledging most rain storms were not full-day events.

“Now we’re in a pattern of just getting showers and thunderstorms just about every day,” Schroeter said.

He did not have specific rain numbers for Portsmouth.

Sagamore in North Hampton also busy

Richard Luff is the president of Sagamore Golf Inc., which operates both the Sagamore Golf Course and Sagamore Golf Center in North Hampton.

He, too, reported rainy weather has not kept golfers away from the 18-hole course in North Hampton, which runs along Interstate 95.

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“Overall, honestly, if you look at everything from April through the end of June, we’re right on pace to where we’ve been in previous years,” he said Friday.

“We keep track of playable days, which is standard in the industry and we’ve been way up in April and early May,” Luff said. “Since mid-May through the end of June, we’re right on average.”

“Overall the rain hasn’t had that big of an impact on us,” Luff added, except for more work on the maintenance of the course dealing with wet areas.

“A forecast of 95 degrees and high humidity has more of an impact on how many people plan than intermittent rain and cool temperatures,” he said.

Sagamore also continues to enjoy the increased level of play that came during COVID-19, Luff said.

“We’re definitely above pre-COVID levels and we’ve sustained the COVID levels over the past two summers, he said. “We keep waiting for the dip, but it hasn’t happened.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seacoast golf courses flooded with golfers, even with heavy rains