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Member Clubs
SAFETY FIRST
Carmen and Laurel Hill golfers got a firsthand
look at what a cloud-to-ground lightning
strike can do to turf in mid-June 2019.
Fortunately, the strike occurred during the
night or early morning. See the accompanying
photo for what the strike did to the
10th tee.
Laurel Hill is one of five golf courses run
by the Fairfax County Park Authority. In
addition to using radar and weather apps,
Carmen says he gets weather updates from
the county if storms are predicted.
While Cedar Point deals with how
weather systems act because of its proximity
to bodies of water, Blacksburg Country
Club has to deal with the vagaries of
mountain golf.
Blacksburg has used a Weather Sentry
DTN system for more than 10 years. The system
can show a radius of 8 miles and 15 miles.
“Where we are located it can look really
bad especially when it comes from the
northwest…where Giles County is getting
hammered then it will break up when it
hits those mountains,” says Brad Ewing,
PGA head professional at Blacksburg CC.
“When it comes more from the Southwest,
we get that 100 percent of the time. We use
that 8-mile radius as our guide.
“Safety is the No. 1 reason we invested
in this. Back in the day when we first got it,
you literally had to pull some [members]
off the golf course, but now they are pretty
much trained. When we hit that siren
[on-course manual speaker notification
system], they’re out of there.”
The VSGA “tries to use all available
resources, including computer monitoring
systems, weather apps on our phone when
we are outside and local knowledge from
the host golf professionals and golf course
superintendents,” Coates says. “We have
had the best success using applications
that show what is actually happening, such
as Doppler radar.”
For all junior events and others that
require walking, the VSGA has to make sure
it has the ability to get everyone off the golf
course safely if there is severe weather.
“If it’s about player safety, it’s better to
lean on the side of caution,” Coates says.
“Most times, if you trust your gut instinct,
ABOVE: In addition to using radar and weather apps,
Laurel Hill receives weather updates from Fairfax
County if storms are predicted.
BELOW: A look at the dashboard for the Weather Sentry
DTN system used at Blacksburg Country Club.
that usually leads you to the right decision,
but Mother Nature can humble you
really quickly.”
So who is the most successful forecaster
on the VSGA staff?
“We all have our moments of being the
best forecasters, but [media and communications
manager] Chris [Lang] has
really developed his skills over the last few
years of working with us on-site at events,”
Coates says. “He’s even taken it a step further.
While in the office, sometimes he’ll
brief the staff on the best times to go out
for lunch breaks.”
12 V IRGINIA G OLFER | J ULY/A UGUST 2020
vsga.org