Golf Course Maintenance Weekly 7/13/16

A few weeks ago we did some drainage work near the cart path on #8. This was a drainage project that was along time coming as some of the issues were related to the addition of the cart path in the area which was installed in 2005 - 2006. The area was well known to everyone, about 200 yards out on #8 adjacent to the cart path caused by mostly irrigation water that runs down the path and runs onto the flat section of rough and literally has no place to go. We finally made the time to fix the problem as it made it very difficult to manage the irrigation heads in the area and keep the turf dry and alive at the same time. Below are some pictures that chronicled the project from start to finish for those who are interested. 

We started by stripping the sod along the cart path about 100' along the slight swale that we felt was channeling irrigation water into the bog area.

Sod had to be stripped all the way down to the subsurface drainage system from the cart path left of the fairway to  the drainage inlet right center.

After removing sod down to the drainage inlet and along the cart path, we removed a herringbone pattern of sod to insure proper drainage in the flat boggy area. After removing the sod we trenched and removed the soil to make way for perforated pipe and gravel. 

Perforated pipe and gravel were used in the large excavated trench along the cart path and the herringbone drainage pattern in the rough and fairway. After the fairway started to fall off indicated by where the herringbone pattern ended, we switched to solid pipe and used soil to backfill the trench,

After pipe and gravel or soil in the non -perforated section are in place the crew started to re-install the sod. We roped the area off  for a  a couple of weeks and topdressed with sand and rolled so we wouldn't scalp the area with the fairway mowers when we mowed.

Finished product after a couple of weeks and after the first mowing this week.

Herringbone pattern in the fairway section is hardly noticeable a couple weeks out from the actual drainage installation. This project cleaned up up a long standing problem that went  beyond the wet area as we now can manage irrigation in the entire area without making the area wet or as importantly dry creating  marginal turf.