Parts of Peter Hansen’s favorite golf course were underwater. Again.
As the Pineapple Express storm swept across Ventura County Sunday, the bus driver from Camarillo drove by the 92-year-old course he described as good for morale because of its shorter, more forgiving holes. Already frustrated the city-owned Ventura track had been closed for more than a year because of damage from 2023 storms, Hansen saw the water and worried he might never tee up there again.
“I said: ‘This isn’t good,’” he recalled thinking.
The course’s future remains at least partly cloudy, but if it doesn’t reopen it won’t be because of the storm unleashed by an atmospheric river.
City officials said the course sustained only about $16,000 of damage, relative pennies compared to the $10 million or more estimated price of repairing destruction incurred by tons of sediment and mud that covered the course after the Santa Clara River flooded it on Jan. 9, 2023.
This time around, sand traps filled with water. Ducks swam in temporary lakes. A tree was lost and a piece of irrigation control equipment was damaged.