Believe it or not, and there’s still some wiggle room for not, golf balls are likely to be flying around Babe Zaharias as early as this weekend.

What was Lake Zaharias as recently as Saturday, thanks to Hurricane Harvey’s relentless rains, drained in surprisingly rapid fashion. So rapidly, by the way, that both Zaharias head pro Mitch Duncan and his predecessor, Ed Campbell, are optimistic about being open for the weekend.

“We came through in relatively good shape,” said Duncan. “There was no water from Harvey in the clubhouse or cart barn, but we did get some in the maintenance building. Fortunately, most of the equipment is in working condition. There is still some water around the edges, but not as much as you would think.

“The goal is to be up and running by Saturday. That’s ambitious, but we think it is doable. One of the keys is being able to get our electricity back on, so we can get the pumps working. For the most part, the course has drained off well. Our biggest issue is cleaning up debris that is everywhere.”

Indeed, unsightly debris left Zaharias looking like a huge dumping ground. Most of what washed in with the flooding, littered the grounds when the water left.

A quick trip around the course on Monday revealed everything from garbage cans, to basketballs, to toys, to bottles and containers of all sorts.

“It looked unsightly on Monday but I’ve seen a lot worse,” said Campbell, who spent many years as the head pro at frequently flooded Pinewood Country Club (now Idlywild Golf Club) near Sour Lake. “What’s crazy is that my brother Mike and I came over here from Target by boat on Saturday.

“By Monday, some of the higher fairways were actually playable,” Campbell continued. “The really good news, other than no water in the clubhouse or cart barn, is that I don’t think any of the greens were under water. There was some debris on No. 5, but most of the remaining greens look good.”

Course superintendent Darrell Reeves, in fact, was able to do a first mowing of front nine greens on Monday. He planned to do the same to the back nine on Tuesday, as well as spraying the greens with fungicide.

Players who show up Saturday, however, should expect the greens to be long and slow. Getting them back to normal speed involves lowering the mower blades in incremental stages.

“You can’t do it all at once,” Reeves said. “We will start at half an inch and work our way down. It may take a couple of weeks before the greens are back to where they were before Harvey hit. It is going to be a process.”

Speeding up the process of getting the course playable is the fact fairways were recently sprayed with herbicides and the grass is not growing. That means the heavy-duty mowing can be concentrated on green slopes and roughs. Without quick attention, the roughs could get out of hand in a hurry.

The most visually impacted hole at Zaharias was the par-5 third. Huge chunks of grass and weeds from the water hazard that runs down the left side of the hole washed into the middle of the fairway. The result left the look of Scottish dunes in a couple of places.

Another unique discovery was finding the 250-yard marker from the driving range washed up just short of No. 12 green. The 150-yard marker from the range also floated away and has not been found.

Though the clubhouse did not take on any flood water, the carpet was soaked from a leak in the roof and had to be pulled out. Otherwise, there was no damage in the clubhouse.

Duncan cautioned that he could not 100 percent guarantee Zaharias would be open for play by Saturday. And he couched that by acknowledging that with so much misery all around, he understood golf was not a top priority.

“We are going to open as soon as we possibly can,” he said. “The goal is to give those people who want to play the opportunity for an escape. But we totally understand that dealing with what is going on around us is so much more important.

“I spent Sunday at my parents home in Mauriceville helping them rip out sheet rock and carpet. I know many of the homes next to the golf course took on a lot of water. It is a tragedy and we are all going to be dealing with it for months.”

Meanwhile, for those who need a golf fix before Zaharias re-opens, Brentwood Country Club in Beaumont has, amazingly, been in play since Saturday. And, as of Monday, carts were out in the fairways.

•

Bob West is the Port Arthur News golf writer.