Summer Activities Suffer From Rainy Weather

The sun finally peeked out from behind the rain clouds on Friday, but is it enough to save summer recreation plans? We've told you how area lakes and local businesses are being hard hit by the rain,

Friday, June 29th 2007, 5:00 pm

By: News On 6

The sun finally peeked out from behind the rain clouds on Friday, but is it enough to save summer recreation plans? We've told you how area lakes and local businesses are being hard hit by the rain, but days of wet weather are also taking their toll on popular sports. The News On 6â€™s Heather Lewin reports from golf to baseball if you're playing on grass you're likely squishing your way through a short season.

If sunshine on Friday was a sight you didn't recognize, you're not alone. But after one of the wettest Junes on record, no matter what's in the sky, the ground is still a soggy mess, and thatâ€™s forced the cancellation of 60% of Tulsa Little League games. The teams will soon wrap up a season that wasnâ€™t.

â€œWe've had days where we've had makeup days scheduled from rain outs and those got rained out, so some of these games have been scheduled three times," said Steve McDonald with Tulsa Little League.

McDonald says it's especially tough to keep turning the kids away when they and their families look forward to playing all year. But for most of this summer the baseball diamond has been deserted. It's the same situation on the greens. While the sudden sun sent golfers scurrying for tee times on Friday, overall, business at LaFortune course is down 15%.

"We had the tough winter, we had the great March, we thought, hey, we're ready to play golf, but April, May, June, you get the feeling the golf season hasnâ€™t even started yet and here we are it's almost July 1," said LaFortune Golf Pro Pat McCrate.

McCrate says from a distance it looks great, but the ground is saturated, and greens keepers are having a tough time.

"These poor guys, they have pushed the bunkers up where the rain has washed them down, who knows, maybe 50 times this year and they're tired of that," McCrate said.

At least there's one chore they can let go.

"It's pretty wet but playable, in fact it really hasn't changed my game at all, I play about the same as I normally do," golfer Jim Curtis said.

His wish isn't for a better golf game, but, â€œSun, sun lots of sun," said Curtis.

Golf Pros say the PGA event will liven things up, and that there's still plenty of time left to play golf. Little league coaches hope to make up most of their missed games, but it's not looking good. They're even trying to schedule games on July 4th.

Watch the video: Rain Shortens Summer Baseball Season