This is supposed to be the dry winter?

 La Niña, they call it. It's the positive phase of the El Niño system and it is associated with cooler than average temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, these cooler sea temperatures are sure to bring less rain to drought stricken California. Right?

Here we are, late December, and the weather station at Bernardo Heights has recorded 3.46 inches of rain in this month alone with more to come this weekend. Last year, we picked up 1.6 inches in December. Then the skies opened up and the biblical rains came down and washed away mulch and DG and bunkers and did very little good. It was all at once, 4.29 inches in 3 days and 2.6 inches in 5 hours. It all ran off and made one hell of a mess.

This year's rains have been slow and steady. There is some cleanup work to do, but nothing like last year. More importantly, these rains were useful in pushing through our soils and flushing out two years of sodium that's accumulated from our well water. There is no substitute for rain like this.

Hopefully you've noticed that the many acres of decomposed granite and mulch have held up pretty well this year. We spent a lot of time and money spraying stabilizers on our major runoff areas. I'd say we are about halfway done and we continue to learn as we go. We still need to install more drains and reroute some rain water, but we're making progress.

Another positive I see right now is green bermuda. We just passed the shortest day of the year and the bermuda in most fairways is still green. We have used some colorants, but they have been mowed off and you're looking at grass that is still growing. One reason is a healthier stand of bermuda after all the fairways have enjoyed their first full year of bermuda-only growth. Another is the warm temperatures and lack of frost with only two minor frost events on the year.

We are in a really good spot right now. The fairways will get back to growing in late March, the mulch and decomposed granite will be groomed and stable, and the greens will be refreshed and ready for another summer after all this amazing rain. All of this points towards excellent conditions in 2017 and that prognostication is far more reliable than a weather report.