On Thursday, May 22, 2025, rain, hail, and high winds stormed through Central Texas. San Saba was not spared.
Many people had limbs down around town, and the San Saba River Golf Course was not spared from wind damage.
City Public Works Director Scott Glaze was kind enough to take me on a tour of the golf course to view the damage first hand. These photos were taken on that tour.
When you first go in, you wonder why he described it as…”it looks like a bomb went off!”
There were a few leaves here and there - a few small twigs across the greens. Even though I am not a golfer, I can understand that a few leaves and small twigs would make the game quite challenging.
But then, he drove past the first nine holes (the front nine holes) to the back nine holes. That is where the destruction was really hiding.
Some trees had entire branches knocked off. Some trees had MANY branches knocked off. One tree was uprooted all together.
There was even one place on the path where we had to drive the golf cart out onto the field because the fallen part of the tree was completely covering up the paved path.
He explained that the back nine holes were the original nine holes of the golf course. There are many more trees back there, and they are bigger.
The front nine holes were added later, and there are fewer trees.
If you only looked at one tree that had lost a limb that had fallen to the ground, it wouldn't seem like that big of a job to cut it up and haul it away. But it's not just one tree with one lost limb.
For now, the back nine holes will be closed. I asked if there were any big golf tournaments scheduled soon, and he said there was one in a couple of weeks. They are going to try really hard to get as much as possible at least pushed out of the way in time for the tournament.
Scott Glaze said there's no way the golf course employees can do all of their regular duties and clean up all this mess caused by the storm.
Because of that, the street department employees are going to come help clean up the mess at the golf course.
However, first, the street department has to pick up all the brush that fell in town, sweep the streets to clean up all the leaves everywhere, and then they can come help the golf course employees clean up the golf course storm damage.
This "brush pile" on East Wallace Street (by Mill Pond Park) is actually an entire tree that was broken right off a few feet from the ground.
Scott Glaze noted that the city employees are stretched very thin especially since the storm. (Example: 15 hour-day the day before to get electricity restored)
This photo was taken from the Sonic parking lot just a few minutes after the tour of the golf course damage.
When you see the city employees, thank them for what they do. They do so much more than the department they're assigned to.
And thank you goes out to City Public Works Director Scott Glaze for taking a few minutes out of his extremely packed schedule to show me the golf course damage and allow me to take photos so I can share them with you, our readers.
Please note - this is from the storms that came through on May 22, 2025. More storms came through San Saba County again this week (with rain, strong winds, large hail!). Be sure to get your copy of the June 5, 2025 edition of the San Saba News & Star to read about the storms the week following the one described in this article.
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Photos by Djuana Payton, Editor