Why is #11 Lake So Low??

Lately we have had several people ask why the irrigation lake on #11 is so low.  Is there a leak in the pond?  Are we really using that much water on the course at night?  or Are the fish that thirsty?

The answer is that our pump which transfers water from the river to the irrigation lake was not functioning properly.  This afternoon Ken Whitlock of Propump and Control, Inc. came out to the golf course to investigate the problem.  The pump is located in the concrete silo behind #11 gold tee and is about 20 feet in the ground.  The bad thing is that it has to be disassembled and removed from the silo to find out what is wrong.

Kenny, and his many water spider "friends"(I couldn't get a good picture of them but they were huge) removed the motor from the pump and then with some help from Mitch and Willie removed it from the silo.

 

 

What we found was the nut had come loose from the end of the impeller and had destroyed the mechanical seal and damaged the shaft of the motor.  What we thought was going to be an quick fix, just to replace the seal, is going to be a bit more time consuming.  Once the parts arrive Kenny will put it all back together and get us back pumping to get the lake filled back up.  Hopefully we will continue to get these small rain showers so we don't have to irrigate fairways and roughs until it can get fixed.