Doral Blue Monster Hurricane Wilma Tree Damage Footage

Doral opened in 1961 and has been thru it's ups and downs ever since. Over the years, Doral has hosted a PGA TOUR event every spring on the world famous Blue Monster. This tournament is played just months before the kick off of the hurricane season. In 2005, while I was the Director of Agronomy, Doral was hit with two massive hurricanes. Katrina hit on August 23, 2005 with winds of 130 mph. The hurricane left Miami and as we all know headed for New Orleans. Doral's five courses suffered major damage with over 2,000 trees affected. The entire months of September and part of October were dedicated to clean up and opening of the courses. On October 24, 2005 hurricane Wilma paid a visit to the Blue Monster. This time the damage was more extensive because many of the trees that where stood back up blew over again and the tap roots were broken killing many of the trees. Over 4,200 trees located around the resort property were damaged from both hurricanes. Take a look and this never seen before video of the Blue Monster hours after the course was hit by a hurricane. It will take years for the Blue Monster to grow it's teeth back. In the fall of 2010, Doral embarked on a massive tree replanting program. There were 500 trees planted on the Blue course and smaller landscape beds were added around the tee boxes.

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