In the February 4-5 deluge, 155mm of rain was recorded at the Mildura Airport, with the Riverside Golf Club copping the brunt of the weather.

Fairways were turned into rivers as a channel of water ran through the middle of the golf course causing extensive damage to a number of holes, particularly the low-lying 15th hole where minor effects are still being felt.

Red Cliffs and Merbein golf clubs were also badly affected.

After going through a decade of drought where water was hard to come by, Riverside was forced to close for a week, with the club using four pumps to pump out the tens of thousands of litres of water that had inundated the course.

Secretary manager of the Riverside Golf Club, Michael Doorne, said it didn’t take long for the course to feel the effects.

“It did happen pretty quickly because the ground can only take so much water so it didn’t take long to flood,” Doorne said.

“Having to get the river that was never there out, to clean it out so it’s back to a golf course took a couple of weeks,” he said.

Despite the course suffering initial cost effects, Doorne said there was a silver lining to the floods.

“When fairways turn into rivers it obviously creates a lot of damage, but long-term the course has benefited out of having obviously a lot of water.”

Twelve months on, the golf course has never been in better shape, with the fairways and greens offering Sunraysia golfers ideal conditions.

Riverside Golf Club president Peter de Tarczynski credited the work of the groundsmen who put countless hours of work in to restore the course.

“They did a super job in rejuvenating the greens,” de Tarczynski said.

“The great work of the grounds committee let us get the course back really quickly,” he said.

De Tarczynski said the course was now in the best condition that it had ever been in with the course on 100 per cent water allocations, as well as an abundance of animals returning to the course since the floods.

“The course is definitely benefiting due to the water available,” he said.

“After 10 years of drought and then the floods, this is the best the course has been in.”

This article appeared in Tuesday's Sunraysia Daily 7/2/2012.