Auburn Golf Course comes back stronger after floods

Mother Nature hit the Pacific Northwest hard in December. The rains came. They never stopped. Rivers flooded. The Pacific Northwest became national news on a daily basis.

And golf courses in the area also took the brunt from the series of storms which ravaged the area. If you are a golfer December was not a good month to be teeing it up – unless you escaped on an airplane to a drier and warmer destination.

At courses like Auburn, Mother Nature’s wrath was felt on and off the course.

On December 9, the nearby Green River flooded and in the span of a couple of hours police officers came to the course and told everyone to evacuate because the river was coming across the road. The course was cleared and everyone in the clubhouse and restaurant went home as the flood waters began to creep onto the golf course.

“By the end of the day there was at least 10 inches of water on the road from the course,” said head professional Chris Morris. “The police mentioned that more water was going to be released from the dam and the river was going to rise and we had to get out.”

The floodwaters covered the golf course – except for the holes on the hill. But the worst was yet to come.

That night the floodwater crept into the basement of the clubhouse where the fleet of 76 golf cars were being stored. They were a fleet of electric Club Cars and all were plugged in getting charged up. The floodwaters and the electric cars were not a good mix together.

The entire fleet of golf carts were ruined When Morris and his crew came in to survey the damage, there was three feet of water in the basement and the electric cart fleet was ruined.

“We never had a chance to move the golf carts,” said Morris. “It all happened overnight.”

These were not old golf carts either. Twenty-four were less than a year old and the rest were all less than three years old. And Club Car did not want the carts back because of the damage. So Auburn liquidated the carts and then brought in another fleet for the 2026 golf season. The course was closed from Dec. 9 to Feb. 22 and the restaurant was closed from Dec. 9 to March 21.

There was also other damage including hot water tanks, a cooler, satellite irrigation systems and the pumphouse. Even the electrical grid took a hit.

But the course has come back. There was minimal damage to the course from the floods and Morris said that everything is almost back to normal. 

“We’re still putting it all back together but we’re almost there,” Morris said.