It's hard to get drainage right. As one super has said, "you don't add drainage to a course every year.....just the years you work there."
One of the reasons is adding catch basins is counterintuitive to good drainage in some ways.
My home course probably has 100+ catch basins, mostly in closely-mown areas, in front, sides and back of greens, and some LZs off the tee. Typical lies are soft, tight, thin, much too often divoted, and that's during the growing season.
Management would respond to complaints with "practice and hit more greens" (for poorly conditioned bunkers with lining coming through the surface: "bunkers are meant to be hazards"). Most of the members believe that the course drains well, but I think it has a lot to do with an unusually liberal off-the paths cart policy (play drops considerably when CPO is posted, though quite a few members disregard the signs once past the view from the clubhouse, 1, 10 & 18).
You know the course. Questions: what alternatives are there to catch basins on a fairly flat site? Once graded and built, are the solutions possible without moving large amounts of dirt and $$$$$?
Lou,
In bridge design, the cost of the spans should be about equal to the cost of the piers, which indicates a cost efficient design. In drainage, I suppose the equivalent would be the cost of basins/pipes should equal the cost of earthmoving for most cost efficiency. I
You want surface drainage at a minimum of 3%, and pipes drain well at under 1%. On flat ground, sometimes pipes and basins are the only answer. Sure, you could build up one side of the fw and use all dirt (presuming uphill drainage could be moved around, usually, it can't) Or, you could raise it a foot and add numerous catch basins for a lot less money.
It helps to put the basins in less critical areas, like in the rough outside the fw, but its not always possible. Also, around greens, its a bad idea to let uphill drainage of even an acre drain to heavy cart path use areas. And, most greens have a primary entrance between path and green, and its hard to have a long swale go through that area, so at least one CB is required just to keep the traffic way high and dry.
Lastly, it doesn't help that the mantra is no catch basins, and if necessary small ones to reduce visual impact. In most cases, the catch basin is the limiting factor in system capacity, and small basins in the name of aesthetics often are a problem in themselves.
James,
Would disagree that summer drainage is irrelevant, at least in most climates. I also have a project in the desert of Las Vegas where we extensively collected nuisance water that comes from above the golf course, like adjacent homeowners over watering their lawns, washing cars, draining swimming pools, etc.
Repeated small flow can diminish turf and doesn't always come just from overwatering your golf course, at least on non-core type layouts. This course was careful not to overwater, because their water quality was so bad. We had to grade a flat site at minimum 4% to make sure the irrigation water didn't sit in the heat, or it would kill the grass. This is another factor here in the US that will probably lead to more extensive drainage in previously unneeded areas.