2025 has brought ‘exceptional’ weather challenges for golf courses, staffs
By Josh Rowntree, Director of Communications • September 12, 2025
In Bob Davis’ 30 years working in the golf course maintenance industry, he admits that he’s never seen a season with weather like this year.
From flooding to extreme heat to devastating wind storms and lightning, Western Pennsylvania’s golf courses have taken an unusual and, in some places, disastrous beating in 2025.
“Year in and year out, superintendents go through struggles, mostly weather related,” says Davis, the General Manager of Chartiers Country Club who also serves as the chair of the WPGA’s Green Committee and Board of Directors. “Golf is played outdoors, and we have to deal with the elements of Mother Nature. But I think this year was kind of like the perfect storm, no pun intended.”
What has made the season challenging hasn’t been the amount of rain that’s fallen collectively. It’s been the mass amounts of it in short periods of time during strong thunderstorms, particularly in April, May and June, followed by elongated stretches of dry weather.
“It just seems like, anymore, there's no normal rainfall,” says Davis. “There's been flooding and isolated storms that might impact one facility, but another club down the road is unscathed.”
Heading into the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in mid-June, the Pittsburgh area had accumulated relatively average rainfall numbers, but most of the rain had come through those heavy downpours — not day-long drizzles — which were quickly followed by hot, humid temperatures.
“The ground was saturated,” says Davis. “The term is ‘wet wilt,’ where the grass was essentially baking. Surface temperatures are heightened by the saturated soils during periods of high heat.
“What superintendents were faced with in May and June was just trying to play catch up. And once you got caught up, it was like, ‘all right, take a deep breath because it's going to happen all over again.’”
That combination ultimately results in areas of courses — particularly low lying, poorly drained areas in fairways — having a ‘burned out’ look, where turf is unable to perform at optimal levels or properly grow due to the heightened temperatures of the saturated soils.
But the challenges for golf course staffs began before golfers got their clubs out of storage this spring.
“You start with the winter of 2025, it was lousy,” says Eric Materkowski, Superintendent at St. Clair Country Club and President of the Greater Pittsburgh Golf Course Superintendents Association. “It was very cold, and the turf went dormant, really dormant, hard. The early spring was cool, and very dry, and then we went into a wet, cool period. That was followed up by an extremely hot, wet period and, most recently, we've had great temperatures, a mild period, but it's been extremely dry.
“We haven't had a good stretch of weather yet this year, where all the variables, temperature, moisture and sun, all lined up.”
Extreme weather has taken a toll on local golf courses, with lightning and wind ripping out trees and causing damage, power outages and more issues to area clubs.
Chartiers Country Club, for instance, lost a standalone tree off its 17th fairway this summer, leading the club to have to reimagine the hole’s future design. Oakmont Country Club, in preparation for the U.S. Open, had a spectator tent destroyed when vicious winds ripped through the region during a late April storm that caused three fatalities in the region and left hundreds of thousands of people without power. Numerous other clubs lost trees and suffered various damages due to extreme weather.
“Every storm that we see, there's something occurring, whether it's flooding or high winds,” says Davis, who has noticed an uptick in recent years in the amount and severity of storms and heat within the region. “It doesn’t just rain anymore.
“The week of our club championship, we had gotten a little wet, but there were clubs five miles away that had four or five inches of rain. That's what I think we noticed the most this year. One club three miles away might have come out of a storm unscathed, but another one may have lost trees and had some pretty catastrophic experiences.”
Despite the challenges, a large amount of golf has been played in 2025 thanks to the tireless work of superintendents and staffs at clubs and courses throughout the region.
According to the USGA, Pennsylvania had the fifth-most summer rounds of golf played as of September 5, with 1,301,592 rounds entered into the GHIN database – a testament to course maintenance staffs and their ability to ready their courses through adverse conditions.
But all of that play can take a toll.
“Clubs, and in more cases, public courses, needed to continue to make revenue during that wet weather,” added Materkowski. “They were running carts and playing golf on turf that was probably too wet, but in order to keep the customer happy or get golf out there, they had to do it.
“The results of playing on wet turf and driving golf carts on wet turf weren't immediately visible or obvious, but you already destroyed the soil structure and hurt the turf. So, by July and August, that turf, it was starting to express the damage that had been done earlier in the year during the wet days.”
Materkowski agrees with Davis that, through his career, 2025 has brought the most challenging circumstances for superintendents and their staffs, and hopes that the golfing public is understanding.
“I can assure you that, in most cases, nobody cares more about that golf course than the golf course superintendent,” he says. “A lot of people are holding their heads down and feeling pretty bad about themselves, and they were working harder than they ever had.
“I don't think anybody should make a long-term judgment of a golf course based off this past season. It was an exceptional year.”
For any media inquiries, please contact WPGA Director of Communications Josh Rowntree.
About the WPGA
Founded in 1899, the Western Pennsylvania Golf Association is the steward of amateur golf in the region. Started by five Member Clubs, the association now has nearly 200 Member Clubs and nearly 42,000 members. The WPGA conducts 14 individual competitions and 10 team events, and administers the WPGA Scholarship Fund and Western Pennsylvania Golf Hall of Fame.