Those that are around in the summer, or even during the occasional rain during season, know that 14 fairway gets to be very soggy in the tee shot landing zones. Conversely, the roughs on hole 14 begin to burn up very quickly if they are not watered almost daily. To deal with the different watering demands meant that I had to quit using the sprinklers that watered the fairways and the roughs and use a lot of man power to hand water. The hand watering allowed just the roughs to be watered while withholding water from the fairways to try and dry them down. The process of hand watering a golf course when you are already very tight on available man power during normal times really puts a damper on what can be done.
To solve the problem I used a very simple solution that is used on another very important part of the golf course, the greens. Around the greens there are eight sprinkler heads, four that water the green and four that water the green slopes. A common golf maintenance slang term is "4 in's and 4 out's." This way, I can control exactly how much water is applied to the putting surfaces by just turning on the in's and I can water the slopes by turning on the out's. This type of "in and out" set-up is what I did on 14 fairway.
Originally 14 fairway had two rows of heads, one on each side of the fairway, that rotated 360 degrees. This watered the fairways and the roughs, but you could segregate the two. If the roughs needed water, the fairways that didn't need water got watered anyway.
To separate the ability to water the roughs from the fairway I had the crew take one had and split it into two. One will be dedicated to watering the fairways that need very little water (the "in" head) and the other will be dedicated to watering the roughs that need more water (the "out" head). Essentially, two heads rotating 180 degrees. Now, with increased control on how much water is applied, the playability can be controlled better.
Part of splitting the single heads into two separate heads meant that we also needed to install additional control wires and that is what the trenches were dug for. We hit lots and lots of rocks but were able to get the trenches cut in.
Each head has a power wire that runs back to the controller. The controller has a wireless receiver that picks up a signal from the central computer in my office. The central computer controls which sprinklers come on and for how long. The new heads will be added to a very specific irrigation program that can be manipulated to apply very precise amounts of water to a very specific place without watering where it doesn't need it. When it comes to water application for golf, its all about control! By the way, this type of dual head fairway irrigation control is what Atlanta Athletic Club installed on the Highland course to prep for the PGA Tour event.
Despite all the new added water application control that has been added, there is still a remaining problem. What about when Mother Nature decides she is going to irrigate the course for days on end even though we do not need it? We have to be able to remove the unwanted excess soil moisture. Erick and Casey started the process of installing subsurface drainage in the wet spots on hole 14 so when Mother Nature gives us all of her wonderful rain that we so desperately need, we can still play golf.
The process is really quite simple; excavate a trench 18 inches deep, install a perforated 4 inch pipe, back fill with rock and sod over the rock. The problem is that it is a time consuming ordeal. Just the excavation part of the process with two machines digging usually takes 3-4 hours, and that's if we don't run into a problem.
This is a drainage problem! This rock was so big a large construction back-hoe almost couldn't pick it up.
Usually when we find one large rock to remove that means there are others close by and we actually removed three rocks close to the surface about the same size as the one above. Removing these rocks usually tears a lot of ground up. Don't worry, we will fix it. Promise!
As the drain lines are dug, if you watch the materials being removed you can tell where the issues are even if it is dry. In this picture look and see how white and sandy the soil profile is. All that sand means great water peculation downwards and a nice, firm surface. This is also one reason why we sand the fairways heavily in the summer.
In this picture look at the completely different soil profile. It is much darker. The darker color isn't from soil organics, its from a different type of soil. These wet areas that were dug through have a clay type soil called marl.
Here is the Uniform Field Soil Classification System definition of Marl"Marl consists of fresh water sedimentary deposits of calcium carbonate,often with varying percentages of calcareous fine sand, silt, clay and shell fragments. These deposits are unconsolidated, so marl is usually lightweight. Marl is white or light-gray in color with consistency ranging from soft paste to spongy"
Here's another picture of the material in a wet spot
When the golf course was reconstructed, the contractor did his best to not use any marl. We have a few small pockets here and there but nothing excessive.
My staff is finishing the last drain on 14 today and then we are moving on to 13 fairway. There are 3-4 areas on the right side of the fairway we will be installing additional drainage into. No additional irrigation heads are planned for 13 at this time.
I saw this unbelievable rainbow the other day and it just made me think what a wonderful place we live in. More to come later.
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