Gee, maybe now someone will understand the glacier and groundwater remarks I made in one of my first pedantic posts.
I wholly agree that drainage is underated, and would add the entire site water balance as well. Having designed and field tested sewer systems for refineries and chem plants covering 1000's of acres each, and dealt with pollution of natural water courses and ground water, i believe that the golf course architects need to get truly holistic on this subject and put some more thought and budget into it.
Beyond dealing with the sometimes zealous over-watering of courses, surface and subsurface drainage features/systems have a lot of problems to manage and a lot of ways to fail in that mission. Its one thing to move water, its another to do it well.
I'd suggest folks interested in drainage start with the really big picture in their area and "Surf your Watershed" at
www.epa.gov/surf/ or check out the "Wateratlas" at
www.epa.gov/wateratlas/ .
Certainly in the old days, before earth moving equipment's impacts really hit, you had all the natural drainage features from ages of erosion that had to be accomodated in routings more than functionally for moving water. If grass wasn't growing on an eroded slope no one likely thought of growing some there and then having to maintain it! I imagine gullys being filled and reclaimed for an extra 10 yards of fairway by early architects etc. and unwittingly creating higher water velocites and greater erosion elsewhere (i.e., downstream) as "development" continued. Same as what happens today as subdivisions surround golf courses...
For drainage starts... I see:
1. Find your high and low topographic areas. Compare these to your neighbors' and the regional watercourses elevations.
2. Find and define all your water resources.
3. Find and define your groundwater recharge and discharge zones.
4. Define your water budget and balance.
5. Pick your management options with the golf course architect's alternate routings.
6. Accumulate, move, and manage the water.
7. Cost estimate the water management plan budget.
8. Try again until all problems solved or budget used up.
Hopefully, your unreconciled water problems (i..e., unbudgetted management designs) will be small or at least partially solved until future budget is available. Hopefully, folks won't mind cart-path only conditions. Hopefully, you won't have too much flooded acreage.