The problem of Overhead Power Lines

[Ally Mcintosh]

So you have a property which is generally good for golf... There are just too many power lines to work a good routing through it and avoid them however....

You are on a budget...

The power lines are generally medium voltage - 11kV with one main 33kV distribution...

Are there any options?... How much does it cost to move / bury the lines?... Can it be done?

[Richard Hetzel]

Power lines really detract and ruin the aesthetics of the course/hole:

Need Proof? They make quite a bit of noise as well. I would bet burying them would not be cost effective either.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Yeah Rich... Although I'm not looking at big Transmission lines like those... More 11kV Distribution lines (on wooden poles with one cable)...

Thinking out loud more than anything...

But would be delighted to turn this thread in to photos of good and bad examples of power lines on golf courses....

[Bill_McBride]

There are good examples?

[Steve Lapper]

Ally,

   We had this question and the answer is complex. You would first need to produce an environmental study sufficient to pass State, Local and Federal review, You would then need to dig several deep ditches, line the ditch to protect any nearby underground water supplies, sheath the line and provide adequate distances at each end to bring these line out and back up to the neighboring towers. All very, very expensive. Good luck!

[Tom Huckaby]

There are good examples?

In terms of a necesary evil, I think there are. 

My beloved home course - Santa Teresa - has a huge line much like that pictured above running through it.  I've always thought the great George Santana (GCA for the course) did one hell of a job keeping the lines out of play as much as he could... and in fact on one hole, where it couldn't be avoided, the enormous tower is one hell of a fun "hazard"... it's to the right of the fairway but definitely in play... but not terribly so... just enough to get one thinking.  The loud CONG a ball makes hitting it is rather unmistakeable...  Note for course rating purposes we had to treat it as a huge tree!

In any case Santa Teresa is a fine example of making the best of a necesary evil.  I have no pictures to show this.  Obviously it would have been better if these lines could have been buried... but I shudder to think what the cost and pain of that would have been.

TH

[Adrian_Stiff]

Ally.

I dont know what exact costs are now, but those big eifell tower ones were about a £1,000,000 to move back in 1993.

The smaller ones that are on wooden posts could when I last checked be moved for a much more moderate fee that more like a £1000 per pole. Also if the landowner was receiving an annual payment rather than had have received a one off fee, the electric company would move at their cost.

That was a decade ago, prices may have changed a lot, probably the principle of annual payment v one off fee would not have.

This is UK remember.

[Ally Mcintosh]

The smaller ones that are on wooden posts could when I last checked be moved for a much more moderate fee that more like a £1000 per pole. Also if the landowner was receiving an annual payment rather than had have received a one off fee, the electric company would move at their cost.

That was a decade ago, prices may have changed a lot, probably the principle of annual payment v one off fee would not have.

This is UK remember.

This is what i was looking for... Thanks Adrian... I'd heard rumour about the Electric Company moving at their cost....

Will investigate this all further...

Now, to change tack on the thread and answer Bill above, aside from completely avoiding Power Cables with the routing, there are obviously good examples of hiding them from the eyeline as much as possible... and then there are bad ones such as power cables going directly over the back of a green situated on an open plateau with little backdrop (other than the cables)

[Phil McDade]

The Reverse Jans!



(This is actually from the regular Jans, played 364 days a year. On this hole on the Reverse, the wires come into play on the tee shot adjacent to the green. It's the odd hole out at the Reverse Jans that doesn't feature overhead lines.)

[Bill_McBride]

I was thinking the range of examples would run from terrible to awful to tolerable, never achieving "good."  Power lines may be a necessary evil but they will always be intrusive and unnatural.

[Tom Huckaby]

I was thinking the range of examples would run from terrible to awful to tolerable, never achieving "good."  Power lines may be a necessary evil but they will always be intrusive and unnatural.

Well, if the choice is golf course with power lines, or no golf course at all, I gotta go for golf course.

And that would seem to be the story at my home course.  So with this in mind, well as far as power lines go, this has to be seen as very good.  They're not much in play and they don't detract from any views.

TH

[Tom_Doak]

Ally:

Fifteen years ago, I was convinced that every property I looked at was going to be next to power lines.  (I'm sure glad I finally got over that hump.)  It's amazing how often they come up, though.

Over the years I have heard many project owners talk bravely about burying the XL transmission lines in their viewshed, but I only know of one project that actually did it ... Caves Valley, to the tune of about $3 million.  Most people like the idea until they hear the number.

The smaller power lines are usually not such a big problem ... at High Pointe and one other course I can't remember right now, we just paid for new poles to string them up along the property line, out by the road.  Actually burying them is 5x more expensive, but they are usually willing to discuss it.

[Jed Peters]

Ha! This reminds me of the 16th at my beloved Orinda Country Club that I grew up playing as a kid.

There is a PGE high capacity line tower RIGHT in the middle of the fairway....makes for an interesting hazard. There was one time as a youth when hitting to the tower was my goal....

[Tom Huckaby]

Ha! This reminds me of the 16th at my beloved Orinda Country Club that I grew up playing as a kid.

There is a PGE high capacity line tower RIGHT in the middle of the fairway....makes for an interesting hazard. There was one time as a youth when hitting to the tower was my goal....

BINGO!
I was thinking of that one also... tough to do anything about it... and its ugly but it's one hell of a hazard!

[Kevin_Reilly]

Best mitigation of a power line is #8 at SFGC...there was a line that crossed the fairway on the tee shot back in the early 80's.  Definitely hittable.  Not sure when it was diverted or buried.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Ha! This reminds me of the 16th at my beloved Orinda Country Club that I grew up playing as a kid.

There is a PGE high capacity line tower RIGHT in the middle of the fairway....makes for an interesting hazard. There was one time as a youth when hitting to the tower was my goal....

Picture/brief mention here:  http://orindacc.org/html/16th_-_gibraltar.html

[Kalen Braley]

Ha! This reminds me of the 16th at my beloved Orinda Country Club that I grew up playing as a kid.

There is a PGE high capacity line tower RIGHT in the middle of the fairway....makes for an interesting hazard. There was one time as a youth when hitting to the tower was my goal....

Picture/brief mention here:  http://orindacc.org/html/16th_-_gibraltar.html

Is it just me or are the pics decieving?  The only power tower I saw looked to be behind the green.  I didn't see one in the fairway.

[Kalen Braley]

Looks like either the tower was moved or the fairway.

It shows in this aerial the tower is clearly to the right of the cart path.

[Mike_Cirba]

I swear I'm neither insane nor a conspiracy theorist..   

Now that we have that out of the way; 

At one time I didn't have my clubs regripped for a few years.   Because of the spastic motion I have at the top of the backswing, I basically wore the right hand thumb part of the grip (I'm left-handed) to the metal.

I was playing a course in NJ where a hole ran under high-tension wires.   When I would ground the club, I'd get a noticeable shock through the thumb hole.

I figured that was likely some odd phenomenon until later that year, club still not re-gripped, I played at a course north of Harrisburg PA where high tension wires ran down almost right over the first tee.   It was morning and the ground was very damp with dew.   This time I got a shock that was almost jarring when the metal club touched the ground.

Can anyone explain this?

Whenever I hear electric company officials claiming how safe it is to live near high voltage lines I have to be extremely skeptical.

The obvious lesson here is to regrip your clubs often.   

[Kevin_Reilly]

It shows in this aerial the tower is clearly to the right of the cart path.

That tower connects to the tower directly behind the green.

[Kyle Harris]

I swear I'm neither insane nor a conspiracy theorist..   

Now that we have that out of the way; 

At one time I didn't have my clubs regripped for a few years.   Because of the spastic motion I have at the top of the backswing, I basically wore the right hand thumb part of the grip (I'm left-handed) to the metal.

I was playing a course in NJ where a hole ran under high-tension wires.   When I would ground the club, I'd get a noticeable shock through the thumb hole.

I figured that was likely some odd phenomenon until later that year, club still not re-gripped, I played at a course north of Harrisburg PA where high tension wires ran down almost right over the first tee.   It was morning and the ground was very damp with dew.   This time I got a shock that was almost jarring when the metal club touched the ground.

Can anyone explain this?

Whenever I hear electric company officials claiming how safe it is to live near high voltage lines I have to be extremely skeptical.

The obvious lesson here is to regrip your clubs often.   

Mike,

High tension power lines create magnetic "B-fields" that circle the path of the current in a clockwise fashion (the right hand rule). As you may know, moving a piece of metal through a magnetic field will induce a current in the metal (this is how Alternating Current is created, turbines are rotated through magnetic fields at 60 Hz...). It's possible that you are inducing a current in the shaft through the B-Field of the high tension wire.

[Joe Hancock]

The obvious lesson here is to regrip your clubs often.   

I disagree. The obvious lesson is that your grip SUCKS!

 

(You'll enjoy kicking my ass in a game all the more now)

Joe

[Guy Nicholson]

One option, of course, is to embrace the power lines and route your holes through them as obstacles, as this low-budget Toronto-area course did. This picture is the tip of the iceberg; at least 13 of 36 holes have power lines in play. They make a fantastic clanging noise.

 

[Kalen Braley]

It shows in this aerial the tower is clearly to the right of the cart path.

That tower connects to the tower directly behind the green.

Correct,

However those who have played it in the past recall that 1st tower being smack dab in the middle of the fairway instead of off to the right like it is now.

[JC Urbina]

Tom
The other power line was at Beechtree.  It came across the 8th hole.  it served the house that use to be on the 6th green site.