[Will E]

Go to the Gailes in Oscoda, MI., if you take a cart I'm betting you'll get seasick.
The course is worth seeing.

[Paul_Turner]

It doesn't have to be natural.

[Tom Jefferson]

Beautiful photos!  From what course are they?

The new Bandon Trails fairways are very rumpled, from one through eighteen.  Great work by C & C, and the local lads.

Pacific Dunes as well, the most talked about example being the 16th, which was simply smoothed out a bit with a sandpro, and seeded.

Tom

[RT]

Mark Rowlinson,

Just curious, where were you, more or less, on no. 15 fairway Royal Lytham to see them hit those towering irons from a downhill lie?

RT

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Russell,

I should think about 260/270 yards from the tee, opposite the big bunker on the left of the fairway, so they still had 200 yards to go.  I'm not talking about ground that drops feet, merely inches, but undulating nonetheless.  The undulations are not severe enough to make the ball run to the bottom of the troughs, so the ball will stop on a minor up- or down-slope.  A ball two inches below my feet on a downslope is an almost certain scuffed slice (if not worse).  To see them (one shot from Singh, in particular, sticks in my memory) nonchalantly hit 5- or 6-irons stone dead from such lies was impressive.  It's something you can't appreciate if you are not right by the spot from where they are hitting.

Most practice grounds are flat.  You have an ideal surface for consistent ball striking.  You don't often get the opportunity to practice from a hanging lie.  Usually the only place you can do this is out on the course.  

[Jason Topp]

Russell,



Most practice grounds are flat.  You have an ideal surface for consistent ball striking.  You don't often get the opportunity to practice from a hanging lie.  Usually the only place you can do this is out on the course.  

I've always wondered, why no rumpled practice tees?  

[Jeff_Mingay]

Jason,

There's a rumpled "practice tee" at Rod Whitman's Wolf Creek in Ponoka, Alta, purposely constructed to allow golfers to practice from awkward lies.

I agree with my pal, Shooter, too. The Gailes is worth checking out. I admit, I'd be the first one to criticise a pseudo links in northern Michigan. The Gailes, though, is quite well done. and it's simply a blast to play.

[ForkaB]

Russell,



Most practice grounds are flat.  You have an ideal surface for consistent ball striking.  You don't often get the opportunity to practice from a hanging lie.  Usually the only place you can do this is out on the course.  

I've always wondered, why no rumpled practice tees?  

Dornoch (along with many other Scottish courses) has a rumpled practice tee.

[Sean_A]

Jeff & Shooter are right.  The Gailes is well worth a look.  

Ciao

Sean

[ed_getka]

With a star drain, what is the purpose of the shape? and why would most people think it wouldn't work at PD?

[Dan Kelly]

So......the big boys like Jack N and Larry N get upset if they have to play off an uneven lie?  And we wonder why today's golf courses are to yesterday's courses as Wonder Bread is to a Poulain baguette?

Hear, hear! (Not that I'd know a Poulain baguette from any other.)

That's just sickening.

Break those rules more often, Jeff!

[TEPaul]

"Tom:
There are a lot of "star drains" (perforated tile in a star pattern) buried under the fairway depressions at Pacific Dunes."

TomD:

Do you mean they're under the turf and can't be seen? If so, how far under?

[Tom_Doak]

A "star drain" is just five or six short lengths of perforated drainage tile set like spokes on a wheel out from a central collector tile, so that they pick up the water from a larger and softer area at the bottom of a depression.

At Pacific Dunes they are 18-20 inches down in the sand.  We were told repeatedly this would not work, for various reasons, but somehow it does!  [I'm also told that Bill and Ben did not use them at Bandon Trails; I don't know why.]

[ed_getka]

Tom,
  What is the function of the spokes, just more surface area? If everyone was convinced they wouldn't work, what was your basis for using them? Had you used them before on a project? How do you know they work, is it possible they just weren't necessary?
    I can't wait to get out there and see PD in 5 weeks, to see how the course has matured.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Tom Doak,
If the star drain tile is deep enough to never be a problem with aerification (8+ inches), tied into a central collector, and the trenches backfilled with gravel and sand, couldn't star drains be used in heavier soils also? Rumpled fwys with no open basins possible on a clay/loamy site?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Don,

MY experience has been that any kind of tile drain intended to solve a surface drainage problem diminishes in function over time, probably as a result of either thatch or wind blown soil reducing permeability.

My rule of thumb is to handle surface drainage with surface drainage - ie catch basins and sloping ground. Tiles are best when they are picking up subsurface water.Now, its possible to draw an as built, so the superintendent can go out every few years and replace the sand and gravel down to the tile to restore function.  For most courses, thats hard to figure as cost effective, especially, if the basins are confined to out of play areas.

I do use star drains or a envelope of gravel around a perforated riser near all catch basins, to keep the area immediately near the  basin dryer than it might otherwise be.

[Tom_Doak]

Ed,

It's possible that Pacific Dunes doesn't really need all those drains and that everything would go down into the sand.  They tried that for the first few holes they built at Bandon Dunes and didn't have much success, but they had sealed up the soils pretty good during the clearing operation.

We were adamant that we needed to put the main drainage lines in for insurance purposes, so they'd be there if any problems developed, and decided to do the subsurface star drains while we were at it ... they were Dave Wilber's idea, Kingsbarns has much the same system.  (They got it from the Old Course at St. Andrews, which put in a subsurface drain system several years ago to keep the bunkers and some low areas dry.)  We could always bring up a riser if we had to in a given area, but we haven't had to.

We insisted on doing the same thing at Sebonack, despite being told by the Green Section and the superintendent and others that it wouldn't work, we'd get ice damage, etc. etc.  The superintendent has insisted on putting risers in, too, so he can open them up during the winter months, which I thought was a good compromise.  But I don't want to see a drain cap in every little depression in the fairways.  I HATE that.

[ed_getka]

Thanks for the info. Is Sebonack on the same type of sand as PD, such that you would expect the drains to work similarly? What is the function of the risers?

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