Golf Fraternity Comes to Aid of Flooded Manvel Course

Dec. 2000

Rich Leach has first hand knowledge about the fraternity that exists among those in the business and in the game of golf. That became quite evident last summer when his River's Edge Golf Course at Manvel, N.D., one of the "top 10 courses to play in North Dakota," went under water for two and a half weeks in the middle of June (2000).

"We got an 8-inch rain on June 12 and there were reports of as much as 17 to 20 inches that fell that night in areas just west of here," Leach recalls. And virtually all of the water that didn't directly fall on the River's Edge course soon passed over it on its way to the Red River.

"Everything was under water," Leach says. "We had estimates of $100,000 in damage to the physical property, but even more damaging than that was the business loss that we had...especially when you are just starting to pay-off a large loan."

But help began to arrive even before all of the water was gone. Among the first to respond was Oxbow Country Club in Fargo, N.D., which sent a walk-behind greens mower that Leach and his staff quickly put to use. "As the water receded, some of the greens emerged and started to grow. We used a boat that someone had loaned us to get to the greens, wash them down, cut the grass, and apply fungicide. We hauled that mower around on the boat.

"A lot of people helped us," Leach says. "The good that you can take out of the bad from something like this is that you find out how willing people are to help. They were willing to do anything. People volunteered to pick up debris and do whatever was needed.

"Dakota Peat came out with a turf tender and a tractor, and they brought us a harrow, too. They were really good to us. Grand Forks Country Club let us use a fairway aerifier during reseeding and a lot of other area courses provided help, too."

Special help came from Rich's dad, who operates Warroad Estates Golf Course at Warroad, Minn., and from his brother, Guy, who has an 18-hole course at Spring Valley, Wis. "We had a loader, 4-wheelers, aerification equipment, seeding equipment, and dump trucks from Warroad Estates," Leach says. "They were a big help, and my brother, brought his whole crew up here. They all volunteered to come up and help. They did a lot of the bunker renovation."

Reseeding of the entire course was completed on July 4, but when the course could have used some rain, it never came in a year of very unusual weather. The previous winter had almost completely bare (golf was still being played in December) and spring continued to be dry. "Our greens had really taken a beating and we had to do a lot of re-seeding in the spring. Then there was no rain until that June 12 downpour," Leach says.

"After finishing the reseeding, we didn't get any more rain until late October, and then we got six inches over a two-week period," Leach says. The result of the dry summer was that the fairways didn't grow-in like Leach wanted. "We probably could have re-opened in mid-September but by then our season is pretty much over, so we scrapped what was left of it to let the grass fill in a little better for next year."

As the son of a golf pro and club manager at Kenosha, Wis., and at other places before then, Leach literally grew up in golf. "Dad bought Warroad Estates in 1986. I learned most of my golf experience there, starting in high school. It's all I know; it's in my blood. I can't imagine doing anything other than working on a golf course. As for now, we're just hoping for a good spring and summer. We're going to need them for the next 30 years."

Leach and his wife, Tina, took possession of the Manvel course, located on the Turtle River just a few miles north of Grand Forks, on March 22, 1997, just ahead of the major Red River flood of that year. "We weren't affected then as much as the courses in Grand Forks were," Leach says of that first year. "We had a lot of debris on the course from an ice storm that spring and we were under water, but we didn't have a lot of silt damage.

"It was the unusual weather of this summer that really hurt us," Leach says. "But when something like that happens, you find out that everybody in golf is always so willing to help someone really needs it. I know I'm certainly going to be there for someone else if they should need it."