River eroding golf course

CEDAR HILLS — The Cedar Hills Golf Course is washing away. Parts of it anyway.

Since Sunday, the river that traverses the 140-acre course has been eroding chunks of the river's banks, right up to the tee boxes.

So Mayor Mike McGee ordered excavation crews to shore up the banks and reinforce the tee boxes with boulders and rock debris. So far, it's working. The course hasn't been affected, nor has play.

"The river is running pretty fast," McGee said. "It ate out 10- to 20-feet of embankment, and that was just in one day. So we jumped right on it."

The river is running high, McGee said, because hydrologists had to release water from Tibble Creek Reservoir in American Fork Canyon.

The reservoir is near capacity.

McGee said he did not know how much it would cost the city to protect the golf course from flooding, but he said the price was worth it.

"We have to protect our $8 million investment," he said.

That's how much it cost the city to build the 18-hole course.

The city also has to pay for repairs to sprinklers on the course that were damaged by construction vehicles. Forecasters say water levels in the river should peak Saturday and then go down. McGee said he is relieved that damage to the course has been minimal so far and that play has not been affected.