Thunderstorms and the like

[Thomas Dai]

Thunderstorms, flash floods, tornado’s and the like can and do dump enormous amounts of water and the speed with which such water can flow, spread, accumulate and even linger can be quite amazing.
Oftentimes such occur in otherwise extremely dry areas, arid, semi-arid etc.
What particular design, construction and maintenance methods are needed to preserve courses or at least limit damage in such areas, areas where ‘big drains’ may not ultimately be big enough?
Atb

[Ian Mackenzie]

Thomas -


Unfortunately, we have extensive experience with this problem where I play in Chicago.
A branch of the Chicago river meanders through our back 9 and it has overflowed its banks onto several fairways every year since the club's inception over 120 years ago. In any given season it happens 3-4 times.


In the past this would render the course (at least the back 9) unusable for 2-4 days.
I believe it happened right before we hosted the US Am in 1902 and it was contested on our fron 9 only. I will skip the reasons for this flooding and focus solely on what we have done to mitigate the damage and ensure the course is fully operational in a shorter period of time. In August 2008, the flood was so bad that water lingered on course for days when a 95+ degree heat wave ensued and the back 9 had to close FOR THE YEAR. Ugh. So...


...we know what we CANNOT DO: 1) re-route the course and 2) create large banks to contain the river. (The latter being basically illegal.)

[/size] Since you cannot prevent a flood, what we focused on is getting the water off the course as fast as possible. What we then did:[size=78%]


1. Installed a system of pumps and cisterns and hoses at the 4 crucial areas on-course where the flooding occurs. As soon as the river is back within its banks, the pumps turn on and basically through the cisterns and vaults returns the standing water (on-course) to the river.


2. When we did "restoration" work in 2013 (under Jim Urbina's care), we installed 5-6 acres of "water wicking" in crucial fairway areas. It's somewhat spendy though. This basically helps the water quickly filter into the ground (I think) for MUCH better drainage. More info below:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUTUiKKRz10


http://www.tomwaitgolf.com/the-water-wick-drainage-system


https://www.waterwick.com/


The NET result now: our course drains better and, when there is a flood event, the back 9 may be closed for a day and sometimes not at all depending on bunker wash-outs and standing debris and dirt on fairways.


Hope this helps.
Cheers.

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks Ian. The flooding frequency you mention is quite startling, and for such a long period of time too. Interesting about the pumps etc and 'water wicking' technique.


I am also wondering about the erosion effects.


Having seen the 8th fairway at sandy Cruden Bay well and truly trashed by a thunderstorm type deluge a few decades ago I'm wondering how many of the modern era minimalist look sand based courses would hold up in such a situation, ie green-fairway-bunker-tee wash-outs etc, and to what extent such a possibility, and how to mitigate its effects, are taken into consideration within design, construction and maintenance particularly in areas prone to such climatic events.


atb

[Jason Topp]

Vaughn Halyard can provide background on his club's project which is profiled by Ran:



http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/cedar-rapids-country-club/

[Pete_Pittock]

A few years ago there was an incident around Palm Springs where mountain runoff flash floods severely damaged a course.
Many desert courses have runoff channels built into their design. Dove Mountain near Tucson specifically comes to mind.

The Valley Club had some major damage from mudflow. Rustic Canyon suffered major damage from runoff.

I don't think you can successfully design for the 100 year flash flood unless you build in an area where that is extremely likely. However you can design for common flooding, like Bill Robinson did at Trysting Tree next to the Willamette River by elevating all greens and tees above high flood level.

[Steve Lang]

   IN industrial settings that I work in, we first control outside the fence run-on sources by diversion or give major flows an "express lane" via segregated culvert or other conveyance, then deal with the inside the fence surface run-offs by collecting in segregated systems with surge or storage capacity to catch or at least top off peak flows before discharge to outfalls.

[Pete_Pittock]

we will see how effective the barrancas are at Riviera. Thursday play will resume with about 4 hours of daylight..

[Mark Chaplin]

Ian is that Glenn View?