Amid the tragic floods of Thursday, the subject is trivial, but the reality remains: Practice rounds for the Greenbrier Classic are just nine days away and the Old White TPC course is a mess.
With the area's death toll rising and The Greenbrier resort closed until further notice pending cleanup, decisions have to be made: Can the course be cleaned up and restored to championship condition?
And if it could, should the tournament be held there, or should it be moved to another venue? Or even canceled?
Just as the nation did, PGA Tour players got an eyeful of a picture and video shot by Bubba Watson, who lives in the area part of the year. Taken from the elevated No. 1 tee, Watson panned over the 17th, 18th and first holes, amid the noise of a rushing Howard's Creek.
Hope @The_Greenbrier drys out soon!! #GreenbrierClassic #hole18-17-1 pic.twitter.com/n2HRUTYpw7
— bubba watson (@bubbawatson) June 23, 2016
The PGA Tour is in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Quicken Loans National this weekend. Many players there have committed to play in White Sulphur Springs.
“I don't know how many holes will be affected by it, but I understand that anything within 300 yards of the resort has had damage from the flood,” said 2010 Greenbrier Classic champion Stuart Appleby. “The question is how much sediment is left on the golf course and the greens. Some of the grandstands are in the water, maybe holding the sediment.”
Watson posted a picture on Twitter at about 4:30 p.m., with the creek back inside its banks. The 18th green looked fine, but that was high enough to escape the flood.
Hole 18 and 17 @the_greenbrier Old White. #PrayersForWestVirginia pic.twitter.com/n93sNTNz3t
— bubba watson (@bubbawatson) June 24, 2016
Other spots were not so lucky. In direction of flow, the creek runs past the third, second, first, 18th, 17th, 16th and 15th holes. Other holes are affected, as the creek spilled into a wide area.
1st hole tee shoot not so easy right now!! #GreenbrierClassic2Weeks #GladIGotNewJeep pic.twitter.com/MA79FsCeDZ
— bubba watson (@bubbawatson) June 23, 2016
As PGA Tour rules official Ken Tackett told the Gazette-Mail on Friday evening: “It's a mess right now. There's debris and crap everywhere. Pretty nasty.”
On Friday morning, here's how the Charleston resident described it on Golf Channel: “It's mud, just 3 feet of mud on the golf course around the riverbank. Everybody's belongings all over the place — grills, tires, kayaks, snowboards, skis, lawn chairs, trash, automobiles, golf carts all over the place.”
Tackett is assigned to work next week at Old White, performing advance operations for the Classic. He met with Greenbrier officials Friday, and those officials were discussing the tournament and other matters later in the evening.
That included closing the resort until further notice, a move announced shortly before 6:30 p.m.
White Sulphur Springs was drenched more than most locations in the state. According to the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, Virginia, a co-op observer measured the rainfall at 9.17 inches over the 36 hours ending at 7 a.m. Friday.
There is a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms Saturday, with mostly sunny conditions Sunday. Much drier, but that poses another problem.
“If we get sunny weather and all that mud starts baking, you're looking at a loss of turf, which is tough to deal with,” Tackett told Golf Channel. “Several golf courses in West Virginia are used to dealing with floods [but] nothing of this proportion.”
Tackett did offer one positive: “The good thing is, Howard's Creek is not like a river like the Ohio River, which brings up all that crazy amount of silt and mud like a large river would do.”
The Greenbrier Classic has been down this road before, as workers had to remove 50 fallen trees and make major repairs to the course in just 48 hours following the 2012 derecho. As much of a miracle as that was, there wasn't the flooding and mud the resort faces now.
From the players, there is no shortage of prayers for the victims around the state. But they, too, face uncertainty. One hundred forty-nine players are listed as committed to the tournament, and the final field will number 156.
A handful of top players are coming from the Bridgestone Invitational next week in Akron, Ohio, but many more are due to arrive from a lower-profile tournament in Reno, Nevada. Several dozen desperately need to play here, as a lost start costs them another chance to hang on to their Tour card for 2016-17.
As for a postponement, that doesn't seem to be an option. Every weekend is full between now and the FedExCup playoffs, which begin in late August. That ends the season, with a new season beginning in October after the Ryder Cup.
With that, the options seem to be playing on Old White or somewhere else, or canceling the event altogether.
“Everyone knows the impact, the economic impact and the charities, the local economy, etc.,” Tackett told Golf Channel. “We're putting together several options, thinking about what we have to do, but at this point, all the staff and everybody around the tournament are focused on the community.”
“We'll get to the golf tournament in the next couple of days, of solutions and what we're going to do, but at this point it's too early to tell.”
Golf writer Jerry Porter contributed from Bethesda, Maryland.