Drainage is underrated!

[Mark_Fine]

I think the role of drainage in the design of a golf course is very underrated.  It impacts decisions on most all facets of the course including tees, fairways, greensites, bunkering and the routing in general.  It affects asthetics, construction costs, maintenance, playability, strategy, ...on and on.  Maybe there is not that much to talk about on this subject but I'm always fascinated by drainage and am intrigued by how the architect decided to move water on every course I visit.

[Joe Hancock]

Mark,

I often try to determine the surface drainage an architect may have created, so I can get a better read on confusing putts. Usually more of the clues lie off the green than on.

Joe

[Mark_Fine]

Joe,
You are right, it is very interesting to study the contours of a green surface and see how they tie in to the surrounds.  You can learn a lot that aids your putting.  In the best built greens, everything flows beautifully.  I believe a lot of the contours, mounding, swales, ridges, etc. that the architect built and/or created is tied directly to drainage and movement of the water.
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

I would be interested to hear from hydrologists with respect to the movement of surface and sub-surface water in different areas of the country.

Florida versus Allentown versus Las Vegas versus Kansas,
etc., etc..

[Mark_Fine]

Pat,
Maybe some one will chime in.  Drainage is not a sexy subject but a critical one.  You can't begin to design a golf course without a thorough understanding of it.  

[Mike_Young]

Golf design is drainage, drainage ,drainage.  That is why you will never have the same style shaping in sand as clay or other materials.  

[Don_Mahaffey]

Joe,
How are you? Cold yet? I can tell you the Texas panhandle is a much different place then AZ. I've seen more weather in one month then I saw in a year in Tucson. As far as your post, I was a popular caddy for some of the better players in my area because of my ability to read putts. My method was to imagine pouring a bucket of water on the hole and imagining how it would flow away from the hole. We, as supts, deal with drainage all the time and it makes sense that we should be fairly good at reading putts. We are building three greens at this time and we just installed the drainage. Drainage really sets the boundries on what you are able to do. On difficult sites to drain, I'm sure drainage is a huge part of the costs involved.

[Joe Hancock]

Don,

Doing well here, and tomorrow we'll see our first blast of cold air, highs in the upper 40's.

The drainage issue is about agronomics everywhere. In wet climates, it is also about playability. How quickly the course disposes of excess water can be a huge influence on the economics of a course.

I don't know that this subject has a very long life in the DG, but it's level of importance as an archtectural element may be second to none. To discuss different type of drainage, the physics of water movement (hydraulics) or the level of detail concerning drainage based on climate would bore most to tears. Didn't we have a geologist/ engineer chime in on this subject a while back?

Would love to see some construction pic's of your 3 new greens. A wave of jealousy consumed me as I thought of the fun it is to build greens from the seat of the dozer perspective. There is only a couple things in life more fun than that to me....

Keep us posted, Don, you have many friends here!

Joe

[grampa (Guest)]

you guys bring up a good point regarding drainage but i have to wonder how drainage should be implemented. it seems that in all of the old courses that drainage was used to help create interesting forms in the ground that help lend to the playability and ultimately the architecture. and in modern day work the drainage is soley based on agronomics thus detracting from the interest in the architecture. at times i believe that the search for perfect agromonic conditions has destroyed interesting architecture.

[Steve Lang]

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.  

[Eric Pevoto]

Mark,

Nice topic for a rainy day.

grampa,

So you're saying the use of nothing but landforms to move water lent itself to better architecture? Could you provide some specific examples?  Interesting point.
  

[Mark_Fine]

Some good posts guys.  Glad this topic got at least a little attention.  

I've always said you can learn something about golf architecture by simply watching a course drain during/after a heavy storm.  It's actually quite amazing especially on some of the older courses.  You can see why humps might have been put in here or there, why bunkers are sloped certain ways, on and on.  

[Stephen Lang]

;

Did you know that the permeability of tight brown and grey clays like in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan etc., is on the order of a foot per year or less?  As size distributions grow larger you get orders of magnitude changes in potential ground water velocities... like to 100's of feet per day under the right conditions in sand and gravel lenses and such in ancient burried river valleys.

Its not too hard to see why somw architects, Nicklaus for one, has put a foot of sand over his signature courses, to allow rapid movement of water out of the root zone and promote control of surface water.

[Tom Doak]

Drainage must be a fully integrated component of the design.

My pet peeve are modern courses with catch basins in the fairways and around the greens to collect the water.  These are large road signs that the architect didn't want to bother with designing the holes around the drainage, but had to design the drainage around his holes.

The scary thing to me is that on the majority of the projects anyone builds, the property surface drains perfectly before we start.  (If it didn't, the poorly drained areas would be wetlands.)  And yet, many modern designers need massive $1 million underground drainage systems to make those properties drain after they lay out their course!

[A_Clay_Man]

. at times i believe that the search for perfect agromonic conditions has destroyed interesting architecture.

Grampa- All you need to do is next spring take the trip to Ne. And this statements obsurdity will be evident.

[Steve Lang]

Tom Doak,

So you're telling us that the drainage comes first and then the routing in your renaissance approach to design.  As though you had no modern drainage/piping capability?

In my environmental engineering drainage studies, the routes for site drainage are typically fit to the pre-existing natural flows, but then the surface drainage and needed undergrounds are built around the site plot plans, of course we're not trying to build aesthetically pleasing drainage, just functional, with discharges that meet regulatory standards to "waters of the state".

You must conceed, that for areas like the Gulf Coast, where you can have 3-4 inches of rainfall per hour and you annually get 50-60 inches, that some catch basins are needed if the topography is flat.

[Tom Doak]

Steve,

If a property is flat enough, then we have to have a few catch basins -- although we try to have just 2-4 per hole, and to locate them in the roughs, not in the fairways.

But yes, we do try to figure out where the drainage is going first, and then build the routing around that as much as possible.

[Paul Daley]

Tom:

Obviously many fine young colts today have come through the stables of Peter and Alice Dye, and he is known to impresses upon them - over and over - the importance of drainage. During your own apprenticeship, what percentage of Pete's time did he focus upon this aspect of the job?

[Lou_Duran]

A most important topic, specially for those of us who love firm and fast conditions.  Those catch basins which TomD addresses are also a pet-peeve of mine, as are greens which surface drain everything to the front and negate the ground game.  Perhaps Mr. Brauer, an expert on this facet of design, can chime in.  His redesign of the greens and surrounds at Great Southwest GC in the Dallas area have resulted in visually attractive and interesting putting surfaces.  However, from a drainage and playability standpoint, they are not successful.  Perhaps Tom Paul's maintenance meld is applicable here as well, i.e. even the best drainage design requires proper maintenance practices to work well.

Don M,

Which three greens are you rebuilding?  Are you breaking up the encroached par 4 on the front side into a short 3 and a short 4?

[Jeff_McDowell]

Tom D,

I'm going to take a slightly different angle on your comment. Eventhough a site may drain well prior to developing a golf course, you may be changing the hydrology enough to create drainage problems.

Obviously, if there is a housing component, the volume of surface runoff will be much greater, and you will need new stormwater systems (mostly ponds) to deal with the water.

On golf only projects, you can change the hydrology enough to create problems. Clearing trees and replacing it with turf will also increase the surface water generated from a storm.

Changing the vegetation from a deep-rooted native grass or shrub to a shallow-rooted turf can result in erosion with everything being the same.

I prefer to have engineers design the drainage. I've taken a couple drainage courses, but my boss took six years of hydrology and hydrologic design. I trust six years over my paltry education.

[Keith Williams]

Drainage is important in any kind of development and even more so in regards to a golf course.  Removal of forest to create open turfgrass can cut the manning's n for an area in half.  This, and other changes from development, can have drastic changes in the flow characteristics from a rain event.  Changes in flow quantity, velocity and timing can seriously alter the way a site performs hydrologically.  Couple this with the subsurface movement of water, the porosity of the soil and the general subsurface hydraulic grade line of the site and one can see how stormwater (or just water in general) management is key to creating a quality golf course.

Like everyone says, drainage structures in the middle of fairways or just off the greens suck; so one of the keys to moving the water is to keep the water as "sheet flow" as long a distance as possible before allowing it to become more concentrated flow.  Once surface runoff flow becomes more concentrated you have greater opportunity to develop soil erosion problems and increased probability of soil saturation (along with standing water and diseased turf) which in turn leads to a more urgent need of drainage structures to remove the excess water from the surface.

Keith.

[Mike Benham]

Drainage and architecture are similar to the "What came first - the chicken or the egg?" question ...

Tom's point about taking into consideration the natural drainage of the property prior to design and construction is pertinent.  However, it is frustrating to see a newly built course spend mucho money 1-2 years after completion, digging up the course and putting in drainage and collection basins to fix the problems after the fact.

In large degree, a course architect is an artist, while the fundementals of water flow is a science.  I belive that some architects have other professionals (outside firms) design the irrigation and drainage systems after they have done preliminary routing and site work.

[Rick_Noyes]

Interesting topic.

Jeff,
You are correct in that you are changing the hydrology of the area just by changing the vegatation etc.  I think what TomD is referring to is that if water is moving along the surface naturally, don't do anything to interupt that flow.  In other words, don't put mounds or other features along a natural drainage swale to impede the natural flow.  There are instances where you want to design a feature and you end up trapping water that would nessecitate (sp?) a catch basin. And if that is the case, put the catch basin a far to the left or right and grade to it.

We try to surface drain as much as possible and only use sub-surface drainage in cases mentioned above or in housing developments or environmentally sensitive areas.

There have been instances where we have had construction crews that have worked with other architects ask us "Where's all your catch basins?"  Having worked with archs. that won't surface drain anything over 100 feet they can't believe we surface drain everything.  An interesting point, correct me if I'm wrong, is that most of the drainage on TOC runs toward the bunkers.  You won't find that too often over here.

I personally cannot stand catch basins in the surrounds of the putting surface.  You can call them chipping areas or collection areas or whatever but they're always soggy wet and not much fun to play out of.

[Jeff_McDowell]

I had an interesting conversation with a superintendent of a catchbasin course. He said in the spring and fall when the sun angle is low and the daylight hours are short the ground is perpetually soggy.

There's not enough engergy to burn off the water, but there's not enough slope to get surface drainage. There's a less to be learned from this one.

Of course, his clay soils and our wet fall hasn't helped.

[Jeff Mingay]

Tom Doak makes a great point about natural drainage in his first post above. He's right, natural properties inherently drain well. And far too many golf course construction projects screw up natural drainage schemes, necessitating installation of otherwise unnecessary catch basins and subsurface tile.

A brand-new golf course in my hometown (which shall remain nameless) is a case study in unnecessary subsurface drainage. Walking the course, I discovered a single fairway with 5-7 catch basins located no more than five paces from a man-made pond! The fact this particular fairway was not contoured to direct surface water into the pond is perplexing? The time, money and materials required to take water away below ground, seemingly wasted.

Drainage is not under-rated. But natural drainge patterns are surely under-utilized in golf course design today.