Are irrigation systems the biggest impediments in recapturing greens ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

A short while ago I played a wonderful golf course.

On one hole there was an attempt, a successful one to recapture some of the old putting surface as evidenced in the foot pad of the green.

On many other greens, where the putting surface had been lost, mostly in the corners, sprinker heads abounded.

Is the cost to relocate these heads the biggest impediment to recapturing the original putting surfaces ?

If these heads were moved, how would the green get irrigated ?

[S. Huffstutler]

It's really pretty easy to relocate sprinkler heads. The green would still get watered unless they were moved wayyyyyy back off the green. The more important question is "where is the pipe?" Pipe under a green is a bad thing.

Steve

[Jim Thompson]

Moving heads is a piece of cake.  Shame on any who use this as an excuse.

Cheers!

JT

[Mike Benham]

Patrick -

Where the putting surface has been lost, did they move the sprinkler heads closer to the new edge of the putting surface?

If the heads did not move and remian in their original positions, then capturing the greens should not require moving the heads.

If the heads were moved, shoot the guy who did it ... seriously, in most cases, the main lines feeding those heads are on the exterior of the greens so moving those heads closer to the green would be far more costly then moving them away from the green (adding pipe and wire is more expensive then removing or shortening).  

Mike

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
It can be a problem especially when things are done backwards e.g. a master plan is done after new irrigation is put in.  When it turns out that the master plan recommends expansion of the greens, clubs hate to spend money all over again to move heads, etc.  
Mark

[peter_mcknight]

One would think that, every year or so, a course's super would have original blueprints with green dimensions, walk his course to look at the current state of the green areas, then measure them and/or compare design intent to determine if green area has/had been lost to prevent such a situation.

I know at Saucon's Old Course, holes 8 and 9, the club recaptured lost green area over the right front bunkers on both holes.  The irrigation was well off the green and what was lost was due to years of (I'm speculating here) shoddy green mowing, etc.

I concur with others that the cost to move sprinkler heads isn't all that much.

[Scott Witter]

I agree with the concensus of comments regarding the location of the pipes and the ease to move heads.  This should never be an issue, and the cost to move heads is minor to the importance of recapturing great original pin positions, however, the costs to remove the old sod, if necessary and it often is, can be expensive.  This is a speciality type of work in order to maintain the perfect blend of sod to sod and match grades.  Often, many clubs have resoded, why I can't imagine! some areas around the greens to bluegrass and this must be removed and the grade adjusted accordingly.  I have done this on a couple of greens and the work was completed by a good group out of Pennsylvania, C.M. Boyd, Collin Boyd.  They do very good work.

[Mike Nuzzo]

The situation Pat describes is often a combination of long term green shrinkage, 30+ years, and as Mark mentioned the reverse master plan.

The greens have been shrinking for 30 years, on lobes that could account for many yards.  The green committe installs a loop system for the first time.  Installed around the shrunk green perimeter.  The club then moves forward with a master plan with the intent to bring back playability or add a modern grass.

Some areas can be recaptured, but at this point I've never seen a super say it's a piece of cake to move 50 heads several yards, when they're already not happy about the prospect of maintaining more green square footage at a higher cost per foot than the old grass.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Relocating green irrigation heads (relooping) is not a big deal in the grand scheme of a restoration project. It might well be that doing irrigation around new construction greens is more of a pain to some architects. One time I went out to Hidden Creek when they were under construction and a certain amount of bunker work had been done on #11 and the irrigation guys showed up and sort of started messing up some of the bunker work. Bill or one of the Boys mumbled something like; "There go those "irritation" guys again doing things we'll need to go back and fix."  

[Patrick_Mucci]

For those that say moving four to six irrigation heads per green is no big deal financially, what do you estimate the cost to be, and, where would you put the new heads if the intent is to recapture the entire green, especially where it feeds bunkers and other areas  ?

[James Bennett]

Pat

it can be, if the irrigation is not well placed and sized.

My club spent $20,000 last summer relocating the greens irrigation heads on 13 greens.  It also included upgrading some of the smaller 40mm feed pipe to 50mm, to improve the flow.  Typically, our greens (and surrounds) are irrigated by a simple, 4 head throw set in the 4 corners of the fringe.  Each throw is about 20 metres, at a pinch.  This works because our greens surface is about 400 sq metres (about 4000 sq feet), some smaller (at 3000 sq feet).  We discovered the original installation wasn't perfectly installed, so a number of heads were moved by 3 to 5 metres, and the size of head standardized to maximize the throw.  

We now have a far more even coverage of the greens surface (which is esential during extended droughts) and this has enabled us to extend the greens back out to the original edges.  Previously, these areas on the edge would stress during drought, which had encouraged their conversion to fringe.  It takes the course staff a bit longer to cut the greens now.

[Kyle Harris]

Pat,

Interesting point. When I work my way around an older course, I often look for the location of the irrigation heads around the greens to see if the greens have lost any contour.

I can't say I've seen (or more accurately, noticed) a case where the irrigation heads had been installed AFTER the greens shrank.

However, to answer the question, it has been my experience that the heads and pipes are not terribly difficult to move or replace nor are they costly. Having seen pipelines and irrigations heads moved at a number of golf courses I've worked at, it seems to be a very commonplace occurance.

[TEPaul]

Uh, Pat, no one said that restoring greenspace is the cheapest thing you can do but what are you suggesting now? That it shouldn't be done because you have to reloop green irrigation lines? Do you want me to go check what it cost us per green? Last week Ron Forse and I were out at the 4th green at Glen Ridge with your old pal Dean Palucci as you know because we'd called you about a half hour before. Dean suggested that the entire right side, particularly the right front should be expanded to green space. That would require relooping perhaps half the irrigation line around the green. Dean asked Ron what that would cost and Ron said probably about a thousand. Does that horrify you?

[Joe Hancock]

Y'all are doing a fine job. It has been correctly stated that irrigation can be moved with relative ease. The only caution I would toss out there would be when considering changes around an abnormally large green. Once head to head coverage can't be easily achieved, it can get ugly.

The answer to Pats question, though, is "Yes". Irrigation is the biggest impediment(thats why it's been the only impediment identified thus far). Not a big deal, but bigger than slowly lowering cutting hieghts or sodding or whatever the super chooses to do to get the putting surface back out where it belongs.

Joe

[Top100Guru]

Pat;

I have one thing to say:

"TURN OFF THE WATER"

.......and that is what Brad would say also......

[Jim Thompson]

Joe,

We actually put fairway heads around #6.  When are you coming down next?  Should we try for another treehouse get together?  Maybe the long anticipated Schmidt vs. Wigler Lederhosen Cup?  What say you?

JT

[TEPaul]

Patty:

Tell you what. If the cost of relooping irrigation lines around restored greenspace really bothers you so much when a course of yours decides to address the issue why don't you recommend the club expand the greens anyway and leave the irrigation head right where they used to be which would be right on the expanded green surface? If anyone questions that just tell them the members can use Rule 24-2b(iii) and take relief from the heads on the greens!!  

You'll be a financial hero by saving the club maybe $10-$20,000. But get them to give you at least $2,500 for making the suggestion and out of that I want about $800 for suggesting this to you.

[Joe Hancock]

Jim,

I'm out in LA next week, then after that things settle down a wee bit. If you can get those big guns in town, I'll gladly make the trip and donate to their cause!

Joe

[Jim Thompson]

Joe,

LA.  Pretty soon you're gonna be "Hollywood" Hancock.  Got a nice ring don't ya think!

I'll do my best in getting these guys organized.

Cheers!

JT

[Donnie Beck]

The biggest problem I have found in recapturing greens is an artificial lip created by years of excess topdressing dragged onto the collars in the brushing process. In some spots this lip is 5”+. What we have done is removed the sod in these areas and physically removed this excess material. In some cases upwards of 10 Cushman loads per green. The layer is very easy to identify once the sod is removed. Once we have corrected the grade we used nursery sod in the expansion areas. We then reestablish our nursery greens using core collected during our aerification process. We have such a hodgepodge of grass on our greens this is the only way we have found for the expansion areas to perfectly blend with the grasses on the greens. It is a slow process as we can only produce enough sod with cores to expand about 6000ft2 per year.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Donnie Beck, et. al.,

With the area where the sprinkler head sits getting treated differently, agronomically, over the years, what's the recovery time once the head is moved and the grass mowed ot green height.

TEPaul,

It's not as simple as you ........   think.

The sprinkler heads are ususally above the putting surface and would prevent maintaining that area as part of the green.

[RJ_Daley]

For me, the most fascinating thing to watch in this process is how Donnie Beck describes using the cores from aerations to establish a native cultivar nursury, and then to blend that back into the recaptured areas by stripping out some material of build up and matching the old mottled characteristics of the native bent cultivar.  

I examined the work of a local superintendent wiz (Scott Schaller of North Shore, Menasha) who followed this process in their resotoration work under Renaissance Golf, matching his Washington Bent cultivar which has established over many years.  It may be a process that is elementary to experienced supers, but I think it is one of the neater aspects in the field of turf maintenance.  It is almost like a good terrazzo man when they use the octaganal cutters to piece the nursery turf back in then grout it so to speak with sand top dressing and wash it with a sweep and cutting.  Craftsmanship, that's the ticket...

[Tom_Doak]

Donnie's got it right.  The biggest issue is the layer of topdressing built up on the smaller part of the green, which has been topdressed over the past 20-50 years.

Because the topdressing layer has built up, there's usually some sort of shoulder at the edge of the inner green.  If it's only an inch you can maybe forget about it, but if the topdressing has been more aggressive, just mowing the green out wider will cause balls to roll off the shoulder, so you won't gain much in the way of hole locations.  You really need to build up those edges a couple of inches, and it's tough to do because you want to match the soils ... if you just use sand the edges will be difficult to maintain like the rest of the green.

Moving the irrigation heads is simple by comparison.

[Donnie Beck]

Pat,

I have tried moving heads and slowing scalping the areas down, but have found it does not produce near the surface of using sod. The areas around the heads do not get aerified or verticut like the rest of the greens and tend to be very thatchy. Not to say that it can't be done, but I have never been satisfied with the results and usally end up allowing the areas to grow back up to collar height and going back in with sod.

[Mike Benham]

where would you put the new heads if the intent is to recapture the entire green, especially where it feeds bunkers and other areas  ?

Patrick -

Your statement above implies that the heads were moved from their original location.  At the course you played, is this what occurred?

Mike