Tulare residents describe golf course as war zone after thunderstorm uproots trees

TULARE, Calif. (KFSN) -- In his 40 years at the Tulare Golf Course Dave Vogt has never seen the landscape like this before.

"I couldn't believe the amount of rain that hit us all at one time, and the wind and the hail."

Within a matter of minutes a pristine, neatly trimmed 18-hole course was torn to shreds by a severe thunderstorm Tuesday.

"The raining was so hard that you could hardly see, I mean the water was coming down that fast."

Between the thunder and the hail nobody actually heard these massive giants fall. It took until Wednesday morning to fully survey all the damaged trees.

"Everybody on the sides of us didn't get hit like we did. It was unbelievable, just like it just aimed right for the golf course and that was it," said Vogt.

On Wednesday, groundskeepers already started removing some of the larger trunks.

The course will remain open but all this rain has already done damage to business.

"Right now it's so wet that we're not allowing carts on the course, so that cuts back a lot of the players, we have a lot of the older fellas and ladies that play golf that have to use carts," said Vogt.

Vogt said many of the trees were planted in the '50s-- long before he started working there. The trees were remnants of the golf course's history, sadly giving away at last.

Besides the wind damage, the course was hit by 1.5 inches of rain Tuesday.

Crews say it could take weeks before everything is cleared.