[Joel_Stewart]

Is this poor construction?    I'm seeing it over and over again even at high end clubs.

Can these heads be moved back 10 yards away from the green?

[Ronald Montesano]

How would we get our free drops, in order to chip in?  I need heads on the green, so I can improve my lie there!!

[John Moore II]

Thats a bit excessive. Yes, they should be moved back if practical, at least a few feet.

Ronald-Go play Thanksgiving Point in Utah. Some of those greens have small heads in the middle of the green because they are so large the perimeter heads don't cover the center. I think one of the greens at Landfall in Wilimington, NC, maybe the 18th but I don't remember on which course, has a irrigation head in the middle of the green.

[JC Jones]

Are irrigation systems the singular reason why golden age courses with large greens have had their greens shrunk? 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Typical green irrigation head spacing is 65-70' on a box or triangular pattern.  If they fit on the "inside curves" as show above then the green can be 80-85" wide, so no, I don't think they are the major reason old greens have shrunk.  The reason really is that the guy mowing doesn't want to scalp so he mows a teeny bit inside the green edge which results over time in shrinkage.  (not the cold pool kind)

Those heads are what is called part to part sprinklers around the green - one throws in and the other throws out because a sand based green and the banks often need different amounts of water.  The green ones are electric values for the sprinklers. I can't tell what the furthest one is.  It might be a quick coupling valve for hand watering, or it might be part of an old system.  If it was near a high spot, I would guess its an extra small sprinkler to get that spot a little more moisture.

The sprinklers need to be at specific spacing so they can't move. I have seen it done without those valve boxes so close to the greens, though.

[Joel_Stewart]

This is a brand new course.

The entire green staff was fired because they didn't supervise the construction company during construction or the grow in.  The architect also failed to supervise.  The developer is now thinking about suing the construction company because of shoddy work.   The rest of the course has huge brown spots of dead grass next to extreme wet spots.   

Its a mess but they are aware of it and trying to fix it.

[JSPayne]

Joel,

It is fairly typical for most courses built or upgraded in the last decade or two to have such a set up as this. However, the 5 objects here seem a little excessive.

Most courses will have two sprinklers paired together, one for the green and one for the surrounds due to differing soil, turf and water requirements, and the third is a box for a quick coupler for ease in handwatering the green. However, even larger greens may only have 5-6 pairs of sprinklers and only 1-2 quick coupler boxes, so the intrusion becomes even less extreme than what you depict.

Also, I can count on one hand the number of times such obstacles have come into play for me during the course of a round......and I play a substantial amount of golf. Maybe it's because I'm either chipping over them or already on the green, but in order for them to really affect play, you would have to be chipping or putting exactly in line with those objects and the pin (or the desirable area to have it end up at the pin). The odds of that are slim.

In the end, one of the only ways they could make this situation better (as this is the most efficient layout that I've yet to see) is to use sprinklers with a smaller surface area that could possibly be allowed to grow over with grass so as not to be noticable at all unless they're running, or at least create a smaller obstacle.

[Tom_Doak]

Joel:

That sort of irrigation work is one of the biggest headaches we've had in the past ten years.  Ask Urbina about it, it makes him even crazier than it makes me.

Some of the irrigation consultants out there are just crazy ... if they can't cover the last 5-10 feet of a fairway area they will put in a whole extra row of irrigation rather than spacing the other heads out a foot or two further apart across the fairway to cover it.  And they seem to have zero awareness of the clustering of irrigation parts around greens and how that might influence play.  It comes into play much more where the architect wants to have short grass around the greens (not so common 20 years ago).

In some extreme climates having extra heads is more critical; in other circumstances it is the different soils between USGA greens and clay surrounds which require different irrigation solutions.  In one or two cases we've solved this issue by using greens sand on out away from the green, so the irrigation requirements and firmness of the surface would match better, and eliminated the need for so many sprinkler heads at the same time.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Is this poor construction?    I'm seeing it over and over again even at high end clubs.

Can these heads be moved back 10 yards away from the green?

It's difficult to know, but head to head coverage is roughly up to 25 yards apart, so certainly to move 10 yards further back is a probable NO. Irrigation design is fairly specialised, I tend to do my own green designs thinking about the heads so as sprinklers don't interfer at important places. There is no doubt that green size has largely been dictated by the ability to irrigate. In some cases heads can be 'on the greens' ofcourse, but greens 40 yards deep and 40 yards wide are problems.

 The picture seems a bit over the top with two heads and three valve boxes but I dont know the full facts.

[Joel_Stewart]

To me this was a failure from the construction company and its own internal irrigation department but also the architect and superintendent.  Its just lousy work and failure to look at the details.

On the exact same hole, I found this well placed head.

[Joe Hancock]

 

[Shannon Wheeler]

I believe the last photo is of a clean out for the drainage in the bunker.  I don't think anyone would be silly enough to place a head on a bunker slope. As for the unsightly valve box cover, we glue large washers to the lid and allowed the turf to grow over the box, if we ever need to find a clean out we locate it with a metal detector.  Also, if golfers did not require such perfect conditions all of the time, we could go back to full circle heads around the greens and single rows down the fairways.

[Adrian_Stiff]

To me this was a failure from the construction company and its own internal irrigation department but also the architect and superintendent.  Its just lousy work and failure to look at the details.

On the exact same hole, I found this well placed head.

Joel- Its quite hard to blame all three! Without knowing the dimensions of what needs to be irrigated it is hard to know, but certainly two sprinklers side by side is common in higher end constructions, one sprinkler serves the green, one works at about 180 deg to that and serves the approach or greensides because the two areas need different amounts of water.

[Joel_Stewart]

I believe the last photo is of a clean out for the drainage in the bunker. 

Could but I don't know.  Wouldn't a clean out be located more towards the bottom of the bunker then the top?


Adrian:   Not to cast blame, who would you say is responsible?

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

slightly better than this... but not nearly as much fun.

[John Moore II]

Also, if golfers did not require such perfect conditions all of the time, we could go back to full circle heads around the greens and single rows down the fairways.

You know, I just went to the Toro website. They offer heads that can spray out 108'
With that being said, how much irrigated space do we need? That will cover 72 yards of turf. My Gosh, thats a 45 yard wide fairway with basically 15 yards of rough on both sides. How wide do playing corridors need to be??

As for the double heads on near the greens, I think those are great ideas. I know here in NC we have to be careful not to overwater the greens during the summer because it will cause the roots to shrink, or so I was told once by a Super.

[Shannon Wheeler]

Could but I don't know.  Wouldn't a clean out be located more towards the bottom of the bunker then the top?


The clean out is at the top so that you can pump water through the drain lines, thus relying on gravity to do most of the work.

[Tom_Doak]

Adrian:

You should come and see Old Macdonald.  We had a bunch of greens there whose dimensions were over and above normal irrigation spacing.  On most of them Ken Nice was happy to deal with them without perfect head-to-head coverage; on two or three we actually located a head inside the putting green.  But we did NOT change the design of the greens to make it easier for the irrigation guy.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian:

You should come and see Old Macdonald.  We had a bunch of greens there whose dimensions were over and above normal irrigation spacing.  On most of them Ken Nice was happy to deal with them without perfect head-to-head coverage; on two or three we actually located a head inside the putting green.  But we did NOT change the design of the greens to make it easier for the irrigation guy.

Tom I think thats a good thing, I think we are often to precious about exact spacings but it does make a 40 x 40 yard green tough, I have done a few 40 x 30s both ways but I end up with 6 heads with the middlers working overtime. I think sometimes if you have some low points you can squeak another few metres out of a head and with independent head control its not so much of the problem that it used to be with block systems.

John K -The only real problem when you start to go over 21 metres for spacing is wind can play a big factor, I am not quite so keen on a Toro 35 yard throw for greens single row is okay on low budget or UK situations but its not really the best thing for most areas, you do need that double up.

Joel - I am not sure anyone is really wrong, I cant say I like the 5 bits. The 2 sprinklers serving the two different purposes are probably needed, without knowing how those sprinklers are spaced and whether or not they fall in a direct alignment to how the hole is played would be a big factor if I though it was bad design, installation etc. I know I consider heads in relation to hole alignment but its not always doable and there have been times when I have placed a sprinkler more centrally to the line of play than I really wanted, for instance the 6 head scenario with a wide green is exactly that.

[Jeff_Brauer]

John,

The box on top of the bunker is a flush out intended to allow the super to put a hose in from the top to flush out clogged pipes.  If it had a open cover, it could also be an air vent because letting air in helps water flow (fill a straw, put your finger over it, the water stays, take your finger off, the water flows)

Even though big heads throw 108', it doesn't mean you get good coverage that far out.  In fact, the amount of precipitation drops from 100% of what comes out the nozzle at 1" away from the sprinkler, to 0% of what comes out that nozzle at 108 feet.  You need at least two rows to overlap and get good coverage in the fw and then you probably get good coverage out to about half the radius throw.  Two rows would cover about 216', but most irrigation designers would use triple or quad row at smaller spacing to get more uniform coverage.

Both more rows on through the greens areas and part to part heads around greens have proven to reduce wet spots, properly run, not add to them.  Most wet spots, like at my home course as Lou Duran has occaisionally mentioned are the result of having to run a single row fw head, or a green head far longer than necessary to get the furthest area from the sprinklers wet enough to grow grass.

More heads equal less water.  Some new systems report over 40% water savings - 20% each from the design of the heads and their spacing, and another 20% from the control system.

I am also leery of your assessment of blame on everyone involved based soley on what you say.  You don't really know, I presume, what is in the gca or contractors agreement with the owner. Many reduce services to save money, and then rely on their staffs to monitor the construction.  That often works well since the super will have the most to lose from bad construction, but if that person is non confrontational and shies away from the necessary tough discussions, sometimes it doesn't work out as well as hoped.

[Ian Larson]

Jeff and others summed this up nicely already...

My two cents would be that the inside / outside heads for the green are absolutely needed. Even if soils are the same. If I had pushup greens with the same soil as the surrounds I would still want a double head setup. I would never treat the green the same as the surrounds regardless of soil. To be honest I never use sprinkler heads on greens unless I need to flush, hand and hose is the best.

The only thing excessive in the picture beside the green is the green isolation valve. Like others have said thats 2 sprinklers, a quick coupler and probably a green isolation valve. The green valve could have probably been placed farther away, but who knows? We dont know what specific challenges or circumstances the contractor had to work with in this instance. From my experience, sometimes you just have to make it work and deal with whats being thrown at you. In this particular case it is up to the super to think outside the box and make those caps become invisible, thats not the contractors job....unless his contract says so. In normal cases its the supers job to come back to tweak fine tune the details.


The second picture of the bunker, like Jeff said, is of the cleanout...flushout...daylight, etc etc etc. Thats not a sprinkler at all and is actually very well constructed and placed. Again its the super not doing his job for not coming back and lowering that pipe. It has a locator wire in it and can be lowered and grown over by grass.

From the pictures shown I dont see a single thing that shows bad construction, especially anything that calls for a lawsuit. If these pics are the worst you could find to examplify your point, Wadsworth will win this lawsuit if it goes that far. In the meantime Id tell the super to get off his ass and lower his valve caps.

[John Moore II]

John,

The box on top of the bunker is a flush out intended to allow the super to put a hose in from the top to flush out clogged pipes.  If it had a open cover, it could also be an air vent because letting air in helps water flow (fill a straw, put your finger over it, the water stays, take your finger off, the water flows)

Even though big heads throw 108', it doesn't mean you get good coverage that far out.  In fact, the amount of precipitation drops from 100% of what comes out the nozzle at 1" away from the sprinkler, to 0% of what comes out that nozzle at 108 feet.  You need at least two rows to overlap and get good coverage in the fw and then you probably get good coverage out to about half the radius throw.  Two rows would cover about 216', but most irrigation designers would use triple or quad row at smaller spacing to get more uniform coverage.

Both more rows on through the greens areas and part to part heads around greens have proven to reduce wet spots, properly run, not add to them.  Most wet spots, like at my home course as Lou Duran has occaisionally mentioned are the result of having to run a single row fw head, or a green head far longer than necessary to get the furthest area from the sprinklers wet enough to grow grass.

More heads equal less water.  Some new systems report over 40% water savings - 20% each from the design of the heads and their spacing, and another 20% from the control system.

I am also leery of your assessment of blame on everyone involved based soley on what you say.  You don't really know, I presume, what is in the gca or contractors agreement with the owner. Many reduce services to save money, and then rely on their staffs to monitor the construction.  That often works well since the super will have the most to lose from bad construction, but if that person is non confrontational and shies away from the necessary tough discussions, sometimes it doesn't work out as well as hoped.

Jeff-You appear to be directing a lot of this at me and I am not sure why. I asked a serious question about the 108' heads and a single row irrigation system. I understand if would be more complicated; I have put in residential irrigation. And I wasn't aware that I had blamed anyone for anything. Please show me where I blamed someone for anything we have talked about. I did say I thought that perhaps those 5 heads/boxes could have been moved back or spread out a bit if it was possible, but I don't recall casting any blame on a contractor or designer or super for what we are seeing. Please show me where I did that.

As to my comment about the long distance heads: If they can spray out that far, over lap them such that the fairway gets good coverage through out with the perimeters (I.e. the rough, bunkers, whatever) getting the lesser coverage. I should think, that given a 35 yard spray, the amount of water dropped out to 20 yards is still fairly substantial, enough to grow good fairway grass, no? Let the rough get whatevers left and do whatever it will do. Hell, go with a 125 yard wide playing corridor: 45 yards of fairway, 15 yards of maintained rough on either side and 25 more yards of native, unmaintained rough. Surely that would be adequate enough for any course no?

[JSPayne]

Also, I can count on one hand the number of times such obstacles have come into play for me during the course of a round......and I play a substantial amount of golf.

I'm surprised.  I had them come into play three times on Saturday alone!  They come into play all the time in my experience.

DSchmidt......sounds like you need to hit more GIR or miss by more so you can chip completely over the darn things!  And if they're really in your line THAT often, you're either at a course with entirely too many sprinklers around their greens or incrediably unlucky!!  I could probably hit 20 balls into a green at my course here and not have ONE end up with a sprinkler between my ball and the pin. The mathematics of such a probability are astounding!! 

[Adrian_Stiff]

John,

The box on top of the bunker is a flush out intended to allow the super to put a hose in from the top to flush out clogged pipes.  If it had a open cover, it could also be an air vent because letting air in helps water flow (fill a straw, put your finger over it, the water stays, take your finger off, the water flows)

Even though big heads throw 108', it doesn't mean you get good coverage that far out.  In fact, the amount of precipitation drops from 100% of what comes out the nozzle at 1" away from the sprinkler, to 0% of what comes out that nozzle at 108 feet.  You need at least two rows to overlap and get good coverage in the fw and then you probably get good coverage out to about half the radius throw.  Two rows would cover about 216', but most irrigation designers would use triple or quad row at smaller spacing to get more uniform coverage.

Both more rows on through the greens areas and part to part heads around greens have proven to reduce wet spots, properly run, not add to them.  Most wet spots, like at my home course as Lou Duran has occaisionally mentioned are the result of having to run a single row fw head, or a green head far longer than necessary to get the furthest area from the sprinklers wet enough to grow grass.

More heads equal less water.  Some new systems report over 40% water savings - 20% each from the design of the heads and their spacing, and another 20% from the control system.

I am also leery of your assessment of blame on everyone involved based soley on what you say.  You don't really know, I presume, what is in the gca or contractors agreement with the owner. Many reduce services to save money, and then rely on their staffs to monitor the construction.  That often works well since the super will have the most to lose from bad construction, but if that person is non confrontational and shies away from the necessary tough discussions, sometimes it doesn't work out as well as hoped.

Jeff-You appear to be directing a lot of this at me and I am not sure why. I asked a serious question about the 108' heads and a single row irrigation system. I understand if would be more complicated; I have put in residential irrigation. And I wasn't aware that I had blamed anyone for anything. Please show me where I blamed someone for anything we have talked about. I did say I thought that perhaps those 5 heads/boxes could have been moved back or spread out a bit if it was possible, but I don't recall casting any blame on a contractor or designer or super for what we are seeing. Please show me where I did that.

As to my comment about the long distance heads: If they can spray out that far, over lap them such that the fairway gets good coverage through out with the perimeters (I.e. the rough, bunkers, whatever) getting the lesser coverage. I should think, that given a 35 yard spray, the amount of water dropped out to 20 yards is still fairly substantial, enough to grow good fairway grass, no? Let the rough get whatevers left and do whatever it will do. Hell, go with a 125 yard wide playing corridor: 45 yards of fairway, 15 yards of maintained rough on either side and 25 more yards of native, unmaintained rough. Surely that would be adequate enough for any course no?

John- It just doesn't quite work like that, in basic terms a single row of sprinklers centrally spaced would be the least best form of coverage, double row,or multiple row but spaced to throw head to head gives you best, but you nailed it when you said 'enough to grow good', it is better than nothing but best is another matter.

[Joel_Stewart]

Thats not a sprinkler at all and is actually very well constructed and placed. Again its the super not doing his job for not coming back and lowering that pipe. It has a locator wire in it and can be lowered and grown over by grass.

From the pictures shown I dont see a single thing that shows bad construction, especially anything that calls for a lawsuit. If these pics are the worst you could find to examplify your point, Wadsworth will win this lawsuit if it goes that far. In the meantime Id tell the super to get off his ass and lower his valve caps.

First, I didn"t say it was Wadsworth.

Second, I just find it hard to believe its "very well constructed and placed".  I've never seen anything like this before?

This is just examples of really poor work on the irrigation.  Here is another example of how most of the course looks.  You have brown spots followed by spots that have standing water. 

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