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TEARING UP THE FAIRWAY
By Michael
Candelaria
Anyone who doubts whether digging up Elvaston
Park to build a golf course would be anything other than
a man-made ecological disaster should read the following
article. Apart from mounds with red and yellow flags
stuck on the top of them, surrounded by copper beech,
bordered by sandpits and surrounded by people thwacking
balls from one flag to another, there is the part that
goes underground on a modern golf course to think about
too. In this article by Michael Candelaria, where he
talks about systems in the USA, we can see that as this
country is a prime candidate for any techno-advances from
America, Elvaston could well be a recipient of such
technology, assuming that a golf course was built there.
Water
Systems and Irrigation
Watering
Holes
The irrigation and drainage demands on the
average golf course are higher than even the worst
weekend duffer's score. Here's what golfers don't see
from tee to green. Golf courses, indeed, are picturesque.
Ask anyone who has visited Augusta National Golf Club,
site of the Masters Tournament, and the impeccably
manicured surroundings are likely forever etched in their
mind. To many golfers, even the layout of their
neighborhood links course does wonders to soothe a
stressed-out psyche.
Yet, no matter how many times you've
excitedly donned your spikes and grabbed your bag of
clubs, regardless of the myriad first tees you've
straddled with wide-eyed anticipation, chances are you
haven't truly seen a golf course.
At least not the way Kurt Thompson does.
Thompson is irrigation market manager for Hughes in
Charlotte, N.C. Thompson plays a little golf, but he's a
real pro in course irrigation and drainage. And, when it
comes to sizing up a course, Thompson can do it in yards,
like the rest of us, as well as linear feet. In other
words, he sees things just a bit differently. "It
all comes down to the playability of the surface. You've
got to keep it irrigated. And, you've also got to keep it
drained so it stays dry," says Thompson. "It's
a case of watering and dewatering."
Or, as fellow industry expert Brian Vinchesi
writes in a current report for the American Society of
Irrigation Consultants (ASIC), the difference between
golf good and bad is like, well, heaven and hell.
Vinchesi, president of the Chicago, III.-based ASIC,
contends that a properly irrigated golf course leaves
players "feeling as though they've just spent a day
strolling through heaven." Conversely, a poorly
irrigated course, punctuated by dry patches and puddles,
is likely to leave golfers feeling hot under the collar.
So, when was the last time you played golf
with one eye on irrigation and the other on drainage?
Actually, you'd be surprised at what you find. First,
let's consider the most obvious aspect of
landscape/irrigation
Water
The average 18-hole championship course
requires irrigation of 90 to 100 acres of tees, fairways
and greens. The volume of water required to water that
course approaches 150 million gallons per year, or
roughly 500,000 gallons per day.
The water source for most courses is lakes,
which typically are fed from springs, wells, rivers or
streams. Some courses, even out West, obtain water via
the domestic potable water system. Also, an emerging
trend, because of the increasing cost of domestic potable
water and the heightening demands on natural sources, is
the use of municipal effluent water systems. The water is
treated by the municipality and safe to drink. Courses
serve as a natural bio-filter. Eventually, the water
makes its way to aquifers and streams, regenerating those
resources.
Most notably regarding water, we're talking
bunches of it. All totalled, there are 16,000 courses in
the United States, with nearly 400 having opened in 2001.
None of those courses would be successful without proper
irrigation and drainage. Thompson puts it this way,
"If the course is too soggy or too dry, the golfers
will go somewhere else."
Irrigation
Perhaps the only thing golfers will see
regarding irrigation are the sprinklers, and there are
two types of systems: valve-in-head and bloc. With the
valve-n-head, each sprinkler head has a valve built into
it, which controls water flow. With the bloc, there is
one valve operating many sprinkler heads.
What golfers don't see is the intricate
network of hydraulics and piping, along with electrical
wiring. Essentially, a golf course is a miniature
municipal water system, with a tremendous amount of
control over velocity and flow through an extensive
length of piping. The average course consumes 10 to 15
miles of pipe. "There are exactly the same hydraulic
concerns a city has, but instead of square mileage, it's
on square acres," cites Thompson, "The system
must be engineered and constructed with great
caution." Concerns throughout the system include the
damaging effects of water hammer, which could cause split
pipe and blown-out fittings.
Similarly, on the electrical side, there are
approximately 500,000 to one million linear feet of wire
in the ground to control sprinkler activity between the
"controllers," or satellites. And, chances are,
golfers won't see even an inch of that wiring. Each
satellite requires an additional grounding system to
protect against lightning damage. That means advanced
design and installation. "It's like putting a PC in
the middle of a landscape, making it susceptible to
lightning. The components are housed in the little
stainless steel and synthetic boxes you see off to the
side of the fairways. Also, the wiring must be properly
grounded." Thompson describes.
Then there's the communications technology
between the irrigation equipment and pump stations -
wizardry that is enough to make a golfer's head spin more
than a shanked tee shot.
Controls that tell sprinklers not to operate
in the rain have existed for decades. Now, however,
wireless hand-held remote control devices - palm-type
tools - allow users to walk around the course and operate
the sprinkler system. Moreover, Geographic Information
Systems (GIS), used to monitor watering, maintenance and
repair, represent significant advancements.
With GIS, central computers, which maintain
contact with weather stations to monitor golf course
conditions, control computerised irrigation systems. Data
from each sprinkler head on the course is pre-programmed
into the system along with "agronomic" data
like grass type, soil conditions, compaction and slope.
Satellite stations can monitor precipitation,
infiltration, wind speed, transpiration and other
environmental conditions.
With that data, the computer is able to
adjust individual sprinkler heads to optimize course
watering, reducing historical water demand by 10% or
more. "Even a 10-year-old system is technically out
of date. (Micro-processor-based) control systems are much
more sophisticated and a lot more versatile," says
Vinchesi, whose American Society of Irrigation
Consultants consists of membership chapters representing
the Northeast, Southeast and California.
Drainage
While irrigation keeps a course from becoming
too dry, drainage keeps the course from getting too wet.
As such, the two systems must work in concert, and even
the most sophisticated irrigation system can be
undermined by shoddy drainage.
With drainage, the greens and the surrounding
sand traps receive the most attention, followed by the
fairways and tees. Because more than 50% of course play
occurs around and on the greens, they are a
superintendent's top priority. Often, a golf course is
judged by the quality of the greens. Not coincidentally,
construction of a single green could cost upward of
$30,000 - even more if built to United States Golf
Association specifications.
Subterranean drainage represents a
considerable portion of that cost. Typically, a matrix of
gravel and perforated pipe lies under each green. The
matrix system collects water as it seeps down through the
green, carries the water away and then dumps it into a
main system. "There's a herringbone labyrinth under
every green, and it's quite extensive," says
Thompson. "When it fails, you have big problems. You
almost have to go back in and rebuild the green."
On fairways, drainage occurs with the aid of
catch basins and drainage piping that measures from four
to 24 inches in width. Surface runoff travels to a
collection point, where a piping system transports the
water to a discharge point. Water moving horizontally in
the soil is intercepted underground by a specialized
drainage system. "This is all the behind-the-scenes
stuff," concludes Thompson. "Irrigation and
drainage systems are expensive to install and complex to
maintain. The maintenance and operation falls to the golf
course superintendent."
And, that's only one of the superintendent's
many responsibilities. So, the next time you see a
superintendent working on a course, consider buying him a
cool drink.
Kurt Thompson of Hughes can be reached in
Charlotte, N.C., at (704) 599-5710. Brian Vinchesi of the
American Society of Irrigation Consultants can be reached
at (312) 372-7090 or at:
www.asic.ora
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