Sprinkler heads, how many is "normal"?

[David Stamm]

Flipping through my World Atlas of Golf the other night, I noticed in the Valderrama write up that 4600 sprinkler heads were installed throughout the course when RTJ reworked it years ago. I know this depends on a lot of factors, but is this a normal number? My goodness that sounds like alot!

[Peter Pallotta]

David - I don't know the answer, but here's hoping that Don Mahaffey chimes in about the system he and Mike Nuzzo designed for Wolf Point -- it was meant to be a system, I believe, that was simpler, less expensive and better integrated with the architecture than normal/usual. It might prove an interesting point of comparison whatever the number.

Peter

[Duane Sharpe]

David
Just for reference, we have 450 sprinkler heads at Blackhawk with 45 acres of fairways. No heads in the rough and half sprinklers on most tees.
The last course I worked at in Calgary had 1600 sprinkler heads and was designed to water wall to wall.
There is a wide variance depending on what type of product you want.
Sharpee
Blackhawk

[JSPayne]

As David stated, there really is no "normal". The number varies widely on how you irrigate, where you irrigate, what typical weather and climate conditions are, what kind of turf you have, the layout of your course, obstacles that may need to be worked around to achieve proper coverage, etc, plus a mulititude of other factors. I hesitate to disclose alot of numbers in wondering about what you are trying to use them for, but for shear statistical purposes:

At my course we have/had 2052 large-area turf sprinklers according to original construction specs (the course is 7 years old now and surely modifications have been made but I haven't gone to take a physical count recently). We also have close to 1000 of those stupid little 4" pop-up landscape type sprinklers around the clubhouse/entrance/parking lot area.

We also have 110 acres of irrigated turf on an approximately 250 acre property.

[Kyle Harris]

I'm Irrigation Tech at Hunter's Green Country Club in Tampa.

We have approx. 1500 irrigations heads. Varying between Toro 670/690, 750, and 855s.

The greens have paired inner/outer heads of the 855 series. 3 greens with 5 pairs, the putting green with 6 and the remaining 15 with 4.

That's 162 for the greens alone.

[Tim Copeland]

As long as supers have the hand held radios they will increase in number.  Most supers dont want to do anything but punch buttons.

[Kyle Harris]

I don't really care about the sheer numbers, but I'll tell you what's becoming increasingly annoying that I'm seeing more and more frequently:

Rows of 3 sprinklers at the edge of the green, lined up together line a stoplight buried in the ground or something.

This is particularly annoying when I find them in chipping areas. In the aggregate, they take up about 18-24 inches of width through which you're taking a big risk putting or hitting a running chip because you might hit any one of the three. I noticed this at each of Dismal and Rock Creek, and I even think I saw them at the green edge at Sand Hills but I can't remember any one specific set.

What's going on with these things?  I always thought ONE sprinklerhead was annoying enough, but 3?  And if they simply HAVE TO be there, why can't they be installed vertically to the green edge, rather than running parallel to it, so as to decrease their effective width and intrusion on the ground game? 

That would increase the changes of water landing in the approach... softening the approach and further hindering the ground game.

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle:  I'm no expert on sprinklerhead technology, but what the hell are these little sets of 3?  And what are their advantages vis-a-vis the old 1?

Is it my imagination, or has the "set of 3" become the de facto standard recently?

Well, I've never seen that. But I know that sprinklers are often paired. One head covers the green, and the other waters the surrounds.

Not all sprinkler heads turn in full circles. If you have four heads on the corners of a green, they'd all be quarter turns, just watering the green.

[Ian Larson]

A set of three heads doesnt make sense. It could be possible that what you are seeing is the greens head, the rough head and a quick coupler for a  syringing hose with a black cap.

[JSPayne]

Shivas,

It should also be noted that what you are noticing has mostly to do with superintendent preference, not necessity.

Most golf courses use either Toro or Rainbird sprinklers. With Toros, the sprinkler drive that pops up when watering has a cap about 2 1/2" in diameter with a lip. At other courses I've worked at with Toros, we constantly trimmed around the heads at the green to (1) keep a neat appearance around the green and to make them easy to find and (2) because if we didn't, the lip of that cap would sometimes get caught on the surrounding turf and cause the cap to stick up, making even more of an obstacle.

However, I am now working on my second course with Rainbird sprinklers and I've quit trimming around the greens sprinklers. Rainbird drives that pop up around just over 1" in diameter, with no lip. So if you don't trim around them, the grass grows in so much as to cover the whole sprinkler and at night the drive merely pops up to do its job then disappears again and the grass is virtually undisturbed.

If I had the capability to upload a picture here at work, I'd show you.....you'd be hard pressed to find the sprinklers on this course. Although I'll admit, it is a bit of a pain to have to go turn them on whenever we verticut or aerify to locate and flag them so we don't hit them with the machines and break them.

Ahhh.......I love golf course maintenance. 

[Anthony_Nysse]

As long as supers have the hand held radios they will increase in number.  Most supers dont want to do anything but punch buttons.

Wow....thats a VERY general statement. Thats the complete opposite of the superintedent I work for. I guess all we do it play golf, too?

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth, TX

[Kyle Harris]

As long as supers have the hand held radios they will increase in number.  Most supers dont want to do anything but punch buttons.

Wow....thats a VERY general statement. Thats the complete opposite of the superintedent I work for. I guess all we do it play golf, too?

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth, TX

If we had more than 12 guys on staff... I'd be dragging a hose around all afternoon to do it properly.

Button pushing sucks.

*9 201 7518 03 01 02 03 04

Message delivered!

[JSPayne]

Funny.....I only have 12 on staff as well......and sometimes we hide the Freedoms from them when they start getting lazy (aka non-stop button pushing & sitting in the cart watching the sprinklers run)! 

[Mark Dorman]

Rows of 3 sprinklers at the edge of the green, lined up together line a stoplight buried in the ground or something.

At the course I work at, on each green we have one line of three.  Not all three are heads though, one is just a lid that hides a quick coupler, which you can plug a hose into for hand watering.

But this doesn't look anything like a head. If there really are 3 heads lined up, I'm as confused as you.

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

It depends upon whether or not you want to go wall to wall or adopt the Maidstone/Fisher's Island/Newport model.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Thank you Peter.
I'll continue to pile on.
The 3 sprinklers are really 2 with a single quick coupler - a spot to plug in a hose. 

Shivas,
With USGA greens the defacto - the green cavitiy (sand that drains faster) has different water requirements than the surrounds - usually native soil (drains slower).
If there were single heads - either one area would be too wet or one would be too dry - generally speaking.
So they have 2 - one for the green and one for the surrounds.
Another concern is the spacing - as the spacing gets tighter there are more pairs of heads all around - so the likelyhood of one coming into play are greater.

Drum roll - at Wolf Point we have 750 heads for 90 acres of green & fairway.
We have uniform conditions throughout the course so only single heads - usually only 4 or 5 to water a green (yes there is one quick coupler per green - but very hard to find and always in the back).  Our spacing is much longer than anyone would ever reccomend - when I first told a vendor what we were going to use - they gasped - and eventually tried to have someone else talk us out of the spacing.
The way Don maintains the course the heads are almost grown over anyway - no way you could find half the heads around a green.

It was my ideal to have as little in the ground as possible - but Don was the one who knew how to do it - he gets the credit for the heavy lifting - I could have never been that aggressive - or would I have know what to do...

The new systems in theory water less as they provide perfect coverage so you only have to water exactly where you need it.  But there are two factors - Tom Doak has said many times that he's never seen a super with a new system not use it to its high watering potential because no committee wants to spend $2MM on a new system and have it not be green.  That is a generalization, but not as bad as TIMS!

Don's alternative and now mine - it to just water less!!!

The reason the head count can be so high on a single course - say 4,000 - is they use pairs on the fairway and roughs - every grass has a different water requirement and thus its own sprinkler system.

I greatly appreciate the work Duane and Rod did at BlackHawk - Rod is also Mr. Practical - Don and Rod can shoot it out one day to see who is the original Mr. Practical!

A question for you Kyle or super:
If you have part circles around a green with funny angles - how do you tell a technician to go water the green a certain amount?  Every head needs to run a different amount of time....

[Ian Larson]

Mike,

If the green as a whole needs watered I always had a program downloaded in the computer and satellite that ran all the heads either in sequence or together for the amount of time that each head requires. If one of the heads was, say, in a tight corner of the green the arc is shorter therefore requiring less time. The same goes for a head that has a larger arc to cover its portion of the gree. It would be more time. So having preset programs in the central and satellites takes the thought out of it for the tech and the super knows greens are getting consistent water across the green.

[Joe Hancock]

As long as supers have the hand held radios they will increase in number.  Most supers dont want to do anything but punch buttons.

Those radio thingy's are wonderful for growing in a golf course, so you don't have to drive on the new turf to get to the controllers.

Fine post, Tim, one which wonderful contributed to the discussion.

Joe

[JSPayne]

In thinking more about this question, it came to me........to simply look at the shear number of sprinklers on a course can be very deceiving if you're trying to correlate that to how much and the "how" of practical application.

When I first read Mike Nuzzo's post about having only 750 heads for 90 acres of turf I though, "Gee, then why do I have 2000 for only 20 more acres?" The simple answer is that the system on my course, IMO, is more practical for efficient application of water, albeit more expensive. The more sprinklers you have on closer spacing with individual control, the more exact you can be about exactly how much water you give to every area. Thinking about Mike's course I wondered....well, how does he syringe a hot spot in the fairway.....or how does he handle a possible area where the soils or slopes of an area covered by one sprinkler vary? The larger the spacing, the more area one sprinkler has to cover and there is more room for variation in water penetration and holding capabilities of the soil within the coverage of that sprinkler. On a uniform, sandy site, this may not be an issue, but most courses I know in CA need much closer spacing because variation in soil types require more exacting amounts of water.

If I had the sprinkler system Nuzzo has, I would have alot more very dry or very wet areas than I do know (unless of course I had the payroll and staff to do the majority of the watering by hand).

It may seem like alot of gibberish to non-turf nerds, but don't fall trap to equating more sprinklers with higher water use. Remember that your front yard with 15 little pop-ups could easily be covered by one golf course sprinkler, but that doesn't mean you put out more water than that one golf sprinkler would to keep the grass green. In fact, I would venture to say that MORE sprinklers WITH closer spacing correlates closer to more EFFICIENT and therefore LESS application of water.

[Ian Larson]

...youre absoluteley right JSPayne. The irrigation system design is very subjective. It all depends on the budget and the layout of the land and course features. The more heads only means more efficiencey in water use. Most may think that if a super has alot of heads he uses more water. Which could'nt be farther from the truth. I personally would never brag about having a small amount of heads per area. The bare minimum of heads to get an area irrigated equates to inefficiencey. The more money spent upfront to have a system with tight coverage is going to be way more efficient than a system with looser coverage.

[Don_Mahaffey]

JSPayne and Ian,
I helped design, install, and now manage the system Mike Nuzzo described. It's a modern system with single head control, a DU of 85%, and I've never had to drag hose on any fwy or tee. Take a look at the pics Mike has posted and show me the problems you see with my turf, or better yet get on a plane and take a visit to my place. At least do that before you start announcing how I have to drag hose or how I must have wet and dry spots.

More heads automatically meaning a better system is a crock. It might, but it really is all about designing and managing the system to meet your goals. We did that here and it works great.

What's next...saying you need a budget of 1.5M or your course can't possibly be in decent shape?

 

[JSPayne]

Don,

I definetely didn't mean any disrespect. I know irrigation design is like a puzzle and it's going to vary emmensly property to property.

As I stated in part of my above post, less sprinklers on larger spacing would work excellently on a less sloply site with consistant or well-draining soils. I'd be interested to hear what the site specs are like at Mike's course.

My whole point with my post was for those that aren't in the industry and may be looking just at the numerical data of this post (i.e. solely the number of sprinklers) to not equate that with water use.

All that being said, I'm sure we can legitimately argue all day about the design of the system being tied to more than just soil and slope as well, like member/patron acceptance of certain aesthetic and playing surface conditions, maintenance staff available to supplement sprinkler irrigation with hand watering, grass type, climate, budget, water source/cost/quality, etc etc.

Once again, please don't read my post like I was slamming your design. However.....I would think, and it would be a good question for you, wouldn't you agree that even on the same site as Mike's, if you COULD put more sprinklers on tighter spacing (i.e. if budget or time or construction allowed), would that system not be virtually guaranteed to perform at a higher DU, with more precise control in the hands of the super, with less potential for needing handwatering supplementation?

Oh, and my budget is about a third of what you stated and I think we look pretty damn good. 

[Ian Larson]

Don I dont think anyone has attacked your system and what you accomplished. Im sure you have a great system and it meets your goals both agronomically and financially. However ts not a crock that tighter spacing always creates more control and more efficiency. Greens have different requirements than the approach, the fairway and the tee. In California I have to flush my greens once a month to create a rain event to manage my salts. When I do that I turn on the heads anywhere from 3 to 6 hours. I wouldnt be able to do that with full circles around my greens. the surrounds and approaches would get destroyed, completely inefficient and no control. I personally think its important to have site specific control over the different features on the course.

[Tim Copeland]

As long as supers have the hand held radios they will increase in number.  Most supers dont want to do anything but punch buttons.

Wow....thats a VERY general statement. Thats the complete opposite of the superintedent I work for. I guess all we do it play golf, too?

Tony Nysse
Asst. Supt.
Colonial CC
Ft. Worth, TX

Let me be more specific then Mr Nysse.......Most that I have been around that were doing grow ins after I turned the holes over to them have used the radios more than the hose.....after washing out my work they ask why water is standing in a certain bunker or an area is extremely wet.  Usually it is from different soil types that are not recognized and the buttons are pushed from afar and the area is never checked for water accumulation.

.....and I bet you $100 you play more golf than I....but of course...it is after you work hard and check with the shirt folders to head out to the course for a quick nine after work.

Let me put it this way....I have had many grow in boys use the radios to the detrement of the grow in rather than the betterment of conditions.

To the comment that it is better to have the radios so a cart doesnt have to be driven to the box to turn on water................I thank you for making my point about laziness.  Leave the cart on the path and walk your big butt to the box to turn something on or better yet.....In a grow in situation........drag a hose

[Michael Blake]

Mike and Don,

Sounds like you've attained the perfect maintenence meld.

And if I remember correctly, you accompished this at half of your client's budget?

Wonderful when super, client, and designer are all on the same page.



....please continue turf experts.  I find it very interesting.