Weather-wise, it has been an unforgettable summer for all the wrong reasons — off and on the golf course.

Sticky heat and our recent rounds of rotating storms, and resulting deluges, have everybody in a foul mood. Now it sounds like the bad weather could follow us into fall.

This is Hawaii, home of balmy temperatures and cooling tradewinds. If we wanted this weather, we would live in Florida.

Now think about those who deal with it on an hourly basis trying to maintain golf courses. There is no air conditioning and little shade. First, Hawaii courses had to deal with drought conditions this year. Then brutal humidity took dead aim at the greens. Now, recent downpours have done more damage.

"Truthfully, we’ve never experienced something like this before, so it was hard to anticipate and plan," says Howard Hamada, Pearl Country Club’s director of course maintenance. "We’re kind of like day to day. I don’t write a schedule anymore, gave up planning anything and just took what the weather could give you and work from there. But it’s tough.

"It’s kind of overwhelming right now, pretty alarming. I just hope it stops early."

As in now, before another green is tortured by the humidity. And before another torrential rain sits in one place for hours, with no tradewinds to tear it apart, and turns a breathtakingly serene setting into golf’s version of a water park’s wild ride.

On Sept. 11, Pearl’s hillside layout took on more than 4 inches of rain. It created a river on the seventh fairway, waterfall on the 17th tee and a sheet of water down the 18th fairway. Because it was coming down so fast, bunkers washed out.

The course, as many here are, is considered a sediment basin. It plays an integral part in preventing runoff from going out, filtering the water as it goes behind the 16th green, through the driving range to the pond on the third hole, behind No. 4 and under the freeway.

"By then the water is amazingly filtered, it’s clear," Hamada said, "as opposed to the river at No. 7 (up the valley) where the river is brown. It is amazing what a sediment basin does."

Oahu Country Club, probably the steepest course on Oahu, works the same way, with runoff eventually finding Nuuanu Stream. Last week, OCC took on more than 10 inches, according to Grounds Superintendent Curtis Kono. Carts often had to stay on the path, but the course was open.

"It’s not too much for us," Kono said. "The members can walk, or keep the carts on the path. It’s up to them. If there is lightning, that’s different."

Flat courses, like Ala Wai and Makalena, actually have a tougher time and tend to flood during really hard rains. Kapolei was designed to receive overflow storm water and is a bailout area, Kono said. West Loch and Ewa Villages are retention basins, according to City & County Golf Course System Administrator Garrick Iwamura.

"Whatever is above them has to exit somewhere, so it comes through the golf course," Iwamura says. "At West Loch, the storm water runoff goes through the golf course and eventually out Pearl Harbor, but the silt deposits stay on the golf course, which is what it is supposed to do. Same thing at Ewa Villages."

Oahu’s six municipal courses get some 400,000 rounds annually — 100,000 at Ala Wai. Pali gets lots of rain, but like OCC, the water keeps running downhill. Kahuku is mostly sand and can take a lot of water, Iwamura says, but the bunkers wash out during downpours.

We have been through droughts before, but the current unmitigated mugginess is something new and unwanted. On the golf course, its effects are seen mostly on the greens, which are so closely mowed they are more susceptible to fungus.

"You have to counter by applying fungicides," Iwamura says. "As long as they are healthy they can overcome it. It’s like if you catch cold and you are healthy it lasts three days and you are fine. Same with greens. As long as they are healthy they can withstand it, so you’ve got to apply fungicides so they can stay healthy."

Kono describes the humidity combined with all the "mini tropical storms" this summer as creating a "hot house condition," even at night. That causes the grass to grow much more. He typically mows fairways three times a week, but could do it daily now.

Most courses don’t have the staff and equipment available to keep up with those demands. And, just in case the triple whammy of drought, downpours and humidity wasn’t enough, it is now aeration season.

Yet more to do for maintenance crews whose health could be at risk in this weather, if they are on the course too long at a job so physically demanding.

"I’m a little bit worried for the workers," Hamada says. "They could get heat stroke. I told them if you feel like something is coming on, if you are light-headed, don’t do it. Change things up.

"That was an alarming part for us. We expect less productivity."

And fewer green fees because of the excess heat and wild weather. Playing at noon is torture.

"Conditions like that are not a pleasure to golf in," says Kono, the 1987 Manoa Cup champ. "Unless you are a golf fanatic and you’ve got to go out and play … it’s not fun for me."

Is it Christmas yet?