Drainage on sandy sites

[Brendan Dolan]

I am just curious about how much drainage is used on sandy sites.  I helped build a golf course on a sandy loamy site, where we used a lot of sumps for drainage in the fairways.  For greens and bunkers and some fairway areas we put drainage in, and day lighted the pipe into the native areas.

I am curiuos what type of drainage was used on projects like Sand Hills, Dismal River, Pacific Dunes, Ballyneal, and other recently constructed courses on extremely sandy sites.  Is there drainage underneath the green surfaces or in the bunkers?  Thanks for any help.
Brendan  

[Jeff_Mingay]

Brendan,

This is an interesting question. I haven't worked at a pure sand property yet, but was surprised to read recently in Dream Golf that more subsurface drainage was required at Kidd's Bandon Dunes than they originally thought would be needed.

Thought I'd bump this thread so perhaps Doak (you mention Pacific and Ballyneal), and others can provide some practical info.

Cheers,  

[RT]

Hi Brendan,

A lot depends on what types of soils are underneath the whatever thickness of sand that is on the surface.  As well as what quality of sand that is on the surface, plus surface slopes.  Precipitation intensities are another factor.  Add to that the type of root growth in the growing medium pore space and you start to realize that there is more than meets the eye as it were.

There could be some impeding layers below the sand level that will not allow as free drainage as one would have intuitively thought otherwise.

For Royal Melbourne there is 300 feet of sand below the surface.  For Bandon Dunes its probably another scenario altogether.

Drainage as a term is a pretty diverse kettle of fish, with the word conjuring up different concepts to different people.  Get a hold of a a good soil physics book dedicated to sports fields and start to see the complexity and dynamics of it.

[Tom_Doak]

Brendan:

Russell has the technical background; I've just seen a lot of different stuff.  Every site is different.

In Bandon the sand is over the top of sandstone layers ... you never know how deep until you dig a hole.  The construction of Bandon Dunes discovered that some pockets were very close to sandstone, so you could not expect the drainage to percolate down.  They went back with major drainage, with pipe outfalls toward the ocean.

Knowing that, when we did Pacific Dunes, we put all the main drainage lines in, as part of construction.  The one difference with our system was that because we hate those green plastic drain caps, and because the ground never freezes in Bandon, our drains consist of a loop of perforated pipe buried a foot deep underground.  It sucks the water out of the low spots just fine, and you never see evidence of the system.

We got that idea from Kingsbarns ... which got it from St. Andrews.  They installed a similar system at St. Andrews 15-20 years ago.  When I caddied there, a wet spell would leave puddles of water in places on the links, because the whole place is not too far above water table I suppose.  Anyway, they ran a bunch of main drains years ago to fix that problem, with some of the $$$ they collect from green fees.

Ballyneal does not have any drains, just sumps as at Erin Hills ... the sand is so deep and the climate so dry that we don't expect any problems to surface.  Sand Hills took the same tack.  At Barnbougle we didn't even bother with sumps in most places, the sand pulls the water down plenty well, but there are a couple of places on each nine which are very low and drainage was installed to move the water out.

There is no drainage underneath the greens at any of the courses I've spoken of, and only underneath the bunkers where they are in low spots overall at Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes and Kingsbarns and St. Andrews.

[Brendan Dolan]

Thanks for the responses.  Tom, when you mention the sumps that you put in on some of your courses do they have drain covers showing?  Also I assume that the pipe you put in at PD had a sock on it or something.  Have the greens you mentioned, without drainage, have any drainage issues.  Like spots where the water might collect to and cause problem with the growth of grass.  I have never played one of your courses, but that is very cool, that you keep the green covers to a minumum.  

I think it would be fun to do a course where none of the drainage could be seen, and had no irregation, except quickcuplers out in the native to grow in the course.  Do you guys think this is possible?

Thanks,    Brendan

[RT]

Brendan,

I think Tom's buried 1 foot below the ground perforated coiled system he describes at Pacific Dunes hides the evidence on the surface of a drainage system.

If you are talking about grow in you will especially need supplemental water via an irrigation system to help establish turf more efficiently on the other areas of the course, besides the native areas.

[Matthew Hunt]

In RCD on the low lying areas(16+17 on Championship Links and 3+4 on the Annesley Links) the water is drained by pipes to a small pond that is covered in Wind bushes.

No notices it until they are Knee-deep in the Water .

[Tom_Doak]

Brendan:

Ideally, our sumps would show no evidence of being there, as we pretty much did at Pacific Dunes.  However, if there is a chance that water might sit in a little pocket and freeze, the superintendent will rightly insist that there has to be some kind of hole so the water will drain before it freezes.

At Sebonack the superintendent insisted on drain caps although we have begged him to take them out in the summer and put them back on in November.  That's what they do at National Golf Links ... there is drainage under each little pocket in the fairways AND on the greens, but it's turfed over in the golfing season and they open the drains in November when the course is closed.  They had a lot of ice damage 3-4 winters ago after the changeover between superintendents because the information on winterizing was not shared.

None of the native-soil greens I mentioned have had drainage issues ... not even the punchbowl at High Pointe, knock wood.

As for the "irrigation free" course you dream of, I think you could only do it in a really rainy place.  The Sheep Ranch has no fairway irrigation but it gets so toasty in the summer that they have to keep players off and let the fairways grow up a little bit.  There are a few other well-known courses without fairway irrigation -- Maidstone and Fishers Island -- but the condition of their fairways is very dependent on the weather, and most clubs and clients won't go for that anymore.

Our biggest pet peeve with irrigation is trying to keep the number of sprinkler heads around the green down so you don't have to chip over them, and the number of valve boxes down so you don't wind up lying on one.  Most modern superintendents want separate heads watering the green and the surrounds, but the common design puts 8-10 sprinkler heads around the green and makes it way too common for one sprinkler head or another to interfere with greenside recoveries and force you to chip or pitch instead of putt.  We have tried different solutions for this.

P.S.  Don't assume that we put "socks" on the drainage pipe in our sumps.  We've dug up a lot of dirty socks over the years in our renovation work.  If the sand is coarse enough it won't be sucked into the drain pipes ... but you've got to have an agronomist's advice on that question.  

[Kyle Harris]

Brendan:

Ideally, our sumps would show no evidence of being there, as we pretty much did at Pacific Dunes.  However, if there is a chance that water might sit in a little pocket and freeze, the superintendent will rightly insist that there has to be some kind of hole so the water will drain before it freezes.

At Sebonack the superintendent insisted on drain caps although we have begged him to take them out in the summer and put them back on in November.  That's what they do at National Golf Links ... there is drainage under each little pocket in the fairways AND on the greens, but it's turfed over in the golfing season and they open the drains in November when the course is closed.  They had a lot of ice damage 3-4 winters ago after the changeover between superintendents because the information on winterizing was not shared.

None of the native-soil greens I mentioned have had drainage issues ... not even the punchbowl at High Pointe, knock wood.

As for the "irrigation free" course you dream of, I think you could only do it in a really rainy place.  The Sheep Ranch has no fairway irrigation but it gets so toasty in the summer that they have to keep players off and let the fairways grow up a little bit.  There are a few other well-known courses without fairway irrigation -- Maidstone and Fishers Island -- but the condition of their fairways is very dependent on the weather, and most clubs and clients won't go for that anymore.

Our biggest pet peeve with irrigation is trying to keep the number of sprinkler heads around the green down so you don't have to chip over them, and the number of valve boxes down so you don't wind up lying on one.  Most modern superintendents want separate heads watering the green and the surrounds, but the common design puts 8-10 sprinkler heads around the green and makes it way too common for one sprinkler head or another to interfere with greenside recoveries and force you to chip or pitch instead of putt.  We have tried different solutions for this.

P.S.  Don't assume that we put "socks" on the drainage pipe in our sumps.  We've dug up a lot of dirty socks over the years in our renovation work.  If the sand is coarse enough it won't be sucked into the drain pipes ... but you've got to have an agronomist's advice on that question.  

Tom,

All you have to do is put the outer heads right next to the inner heads. If at the corners of the green such that the overlap doesn't go out into the approach, it's not very invasive at all.

With adjustable heads, it's pretty easy to get decent and even coverage.

Have you built any greens where this was not possible? I've seen punchbowl and biarritz greens where it was required to have the outer heads in a different spot than the inners because of the surrounding contour, but those greens are large enough such that having the heads around the green isn't too bad for playability.  

[Brendan Dolan]

Thanks for the responses.  
Interesting stuff.  The course that I suggested without irrigation, would infact have irrigation if they needed it.  The quick cuplers would be used to grow in the course, and then could be used during times of severe drought.  I am sure that the greens would have to be hand watered quite frequently.  It would be quite labor intensive, but there would be no heads any where in the field of play except the quick cuplers in the native areas.  

Along with this idea I would like to have no yardages, but would have a yardage book with yardages in it, or a blank yardage book where frequent players could figure out there own distances and notes.  

Thanks,
Brendan
 

[Jon Wiggett]

Brendan,

If you are talking about grow in you will especially need supplemental water via an irrigation system to help establish turf more efficiently on the other areas of the course, besides the native areas.

RT,

it is possible to grow-in with out irrigation if the climate is right (i.e. enough rainfall) but it does take more care and longer to establish the sward. Once established however, the sward is often far stronger, purer and maintenance easier than with irrigation. As Tom says, it does get kind of crusty in dry weather.