"Neither of us (or golfers or the Owner) would want CC to change their unique style just because of drainage, and I don't think they have to - but I think it possible that their architecture would improve with better drainage, if for no other reason than to implement firm and fast!"
Jeff:
The last part of that remark got my attention.
The question is does a style of architecture (and drainage) like Coore and Crenshaw's make a more consistent and more frequent and better firm and fast playability harder to acheive day in and day out as well as how fast the course can get back to it after rain? You seem to be implying that possibility and it would be interesting to check around to see if that implication bears out.
I do know, for instance, they apparently really sand based most of their approaches pretty far out on one of their Long Island projects. Obviously they did that to enhance firm and fast playability.
But surface drainage or catch basins or whatever else in the water moving department on the surface or through pipes aside, what about architects testing the "through the profile" drainage of courses they build and the sites they build on with the idea of maintaining frequent and better firm and fast playability?
How does one go about that? How do you test for that on sites both before and after construction (obviously I'm primarily referring to fairways and approaches)?
Do you do some form of perc testing in those "through the green" area either before or after construction or both? Can you test how well water is going through the profile or growing medium during construction and if so what are some of the parameters of that kind of testing as far as you know?
TePaul,
We usually know the general soils characteristics from county soils maps and do supplement them with specific soils tests. Perc rates are easy to determine but if its not sand, it will be too slow generally to achieve firm and fast, especially where greens drainage runs through the approach, and I know those areas will be soggy much of the time.
I agree with you that is a value judgement. And that 5% more drainage in critical areas to achieve the benefits of 50% more drainage and drier conditions is a GREAT trade off. Maybe even 8% to achieve 40% better drainage.
As such, more and more gca's (including Doak, if I recall some of his posts) are using a 4" sand cap and herringbone perforated tiles in the frontal approaches and fw chipping areas surrounding the green to achieve firm and fast, or to truly allow the chip shot options from around the greens to play like the old Scottish courses do. What we have found is that just mowing the grass short in different soils doesn't always cut it.
While I can sympathize with Tommy and others who hate basins and all the extra engineering that goes into golf courses today. It DOES seem that sometimes the engineeing creates just another problem. But, its a value judgement that most have been making. If we want grass bunkers or chocolate drop mounds in clay soil, we need to drain them. If we want firm and fast in clay soil, we need to create them by extra drainage/importing of sand.
As to surface drainage, there are some benefits to the general CC (and others) approach to leaving natural contour, where they are gentle and produce sheet flow drainage. Native soils are well compacted and drain better than ones that have been graded. Thus, if I was grading a flat area, my minimum slope might be 3%, but I would leave a natural slope of about 2% feeling it would drain just fine.
The problems come when the landforms take waters to swales which concentrates water, adding to soil erosion during construction and sogginess after.
A typical scenario to keep the fw dry (which I think I described earlier a bit) is to look for large drainage basins that will cross a proposed fw in a critical area, like the major landing areas, just in front of a green, or on most courses, a highly trafficed cart area. If the swales cross behind the green or in front of the tee, I would probably leave them alone. There are formulas for determining such things, but generally, if more than a few acres are coming across the fw, it will be wet under turf maintenance conditions. You can get a decent idea in the field by observing if the native soils show any signs of erosion or sogginess after rains in the valleys. If there is any sign of it, it probably won't be suitable for growing fw quality turf. Sometimes I am surprised at how well even large drainage swales drain, and other times I am surprised at how poorly small ones do! Its a combination of slopes, soils, and drainage area that determine it on a site specific basis. (And for Tommy - I repeat that the old courses did in fact add a lot of drainage later in many, if not all, their old swales)
As a result, I would add a catch basin OUT IN THE ROUGH (caps inserted for Tommy's sake) to keep it from flowing over the fw, and thus keeping the fw dry by limiting drainage needs to just what falls on the fw, much like and engineer keeps roads dry and safe, which is easily handled with surface flow. Of course, I wouldn't use such straight line grading, but it is easy enough to disguise the grading by modern shapers.
There is no need to add basins in the fw, but if the drain pipe can't be buried deep enough and still achieve flow, then we might have to add some fill to raise the fw over the pipe. And, if the fw didn't have adequate pitch, we have that pipe there, and its easy to tie a inlet into it.
Again, it seems fairly logical to me that to keep a critical area firm and fast and dry, the best way to do that is to keep the excess water from getting to it in the first place. And, that's where altering surface flow a bit, adding a smattering of catch basins etc. really improves the turf conditions for a superintendent.