One of the main reasons I dislike most modern designs. So many older courses don’t have these and seem to drain fine. Not sure where things went wrong.
Jim, not picking on you, but using that last comment to say what I like to say about drainage. In fact, when you consider all the design needs on any given project, I think most projects went "right" in providing more drainage, but as is typical of golfers (and others) there is a tendency to look at what may have gone "wrong." (When I ask golfers what their favorite hole is, they typically start their response with, "Hole X is the one I really don't like......."
Most old courses didn't drain "fine" and have added drainage every year since opening. As one super says, you don't add drainage every year......just the years you work there. I suspect newer courses designed by newer gca's who try to not have any pipe drainage will experience the same thing over the years. Mother Nature is Mother Nature, and it hasn't changed towards less rain and may be changing to more. Neither has the drainage characteristics of suburban and urban watersheds.
Much of the increased drainage is due to the low cost of HDPE pipe (compared to old concrete or Vitrified Clay Pipe, or even corrugated metal). Some is due to the combo of residential areas and golf courses. Only a bit is a "design choice to alter drainage patterns for mounding, etc. Also, I recall a conversation with Geoff Cornish. When told I spent over $100K on drainage (1980's era) he said, yes that is what it takes, but his generation was willing to wait to keep upfront costs low. Baby Boomers are not as patient. Owners needed the course to be "great" from day one, so basically, many of us decided to put all the drainage in upfront, rather than piecemeal it over time (installing it coincidentally with construction is always more efficient anyway)
As a "yute" interested in architecture, I recall reading the original NGF "Planning and Building the Golf Course" (which I actually updated in 1981....a collector's item I am sure) there was a comment about a sign of bad design being long, soggy drain swales, with a note that modern design was doing more to eliminate those. I obviously took it to heart.
While I suppose we all look to minimize catch basins, at least in high play areas, they are necessary in many, site specific cases. Yes, after the introduction of low cost HDPE pipe about 1990, some designers saw the potential to expand earthmoving, rather than respect the micro and in some cases, big picture flow patterns and it allowed a new style of design that had been previously not possible. Overall, the technology of various types has affected design and it is a good thing when design professionals look to do something different than was done before. In every other design field, copycatting earlier styles of design is considered a poor period, whereas somehow in golf design, a certain subset of critics think nothing past the 1920's could ever be as good.
But, I digress.
Here are some drainage facts that are undisputable (for most sites)
Long swales are still bad. It is best to cut them off, and treat the fw like an engineer would treat a road, i.e., elevate it and pipe any drainage that would cross it under. This isn't so bad, as it leaves most drain structures in the rough rather than fw.
The best way to handle surface drainage problems is with a surface drainage system (i.e, adequate slopes to catch basins) French drains are hidden, but eventually, need maintenance and are far less efficient at moving water away, due to the low perc rate of most soils. They are best reserved for subsurface springs.
Joe mentions wasting money on desert drainage. Well, I did a desert course in the 90's sometime and spent over $600K on drainage, knowing the housing surrounding it would be continuously dumping nuisance drainage down to our fw. Those drains were mostly outside the path and/or fairways, but otherwise, with the holes situated mostly in small valleys to increase perimeter views, it would have been constantly damp, and have poor turf.
More drainage certainly helps with grow in. Soils will erode when water channels at 3-5 ft second, depending on character. Water on a gentle slope or in a gentle swale valley will attain that velocity within a maximum of 300 linear feet. Thus, having drains structures at intervals of less than 300 is often required to eliminate those long, squishy swales. Granted, newer soil netting to reduce erosion helps that somewhat.
Golfers always want any CB to be as small as possible, however, that catch basin is often the limiting factor to system capacity. In general, if your drain pipe sizing formula calls for a 12" pipe, you probably need a 12" or larger catch basin.
There is an old bridge design theory that the most economical designs will have about equal cost for piers and spans. I found the same to be true in golf course drainage. Yes, I could fill a fw one foot on one side, and 3-5 feet on the other to surface drain it. (often need drains on the high side) or I could raise it an average of say, one foot, and add basins. Typically the mix of basins and grading was the least cost to get a fairway to drain.
As to the green surrounds, yes, I hate a lot of catch basins to recreate that Donald Ross subtle chipping areas in non-sandy soils. It might be possible that the Ross style makes less sense in clay soils, although providing at least a few of those types of green complexes is/was very trendy. In reality, if rough, balls rarely settle by an inlet and the real problem comes from deciding that we wanted a fw cut chipping area, in which case they can collect (more often, but not always). That said, I was always careful to plan access routes to the green from the path so that no drainage crossed those high traffic areas, often leading to catch basins on either side of that walkway to reduce compaction and problems associated with heavy traffic. Hopefully, those usually served a double purpose as artistic alternate hazards. As always in design, there are several interrelated factors that make a design for any specific green (or hole) just the perfect solution there.
And honestly, I think some hate the idea of catch basins more than their actual negative impacts. I have played golf for 55 years and can count on my fingers (or no more than fingers and toes) the number of times I have been up against one. Of course, their positive impacts can be unnoticed by golfers, while they will certainly notice soggy areas.
There is a reason that drainage is the only design element that is repeated 3x (i.e., drainage, drainage, drainage) Designing for good drainage is a laudable goal. A design goal of no catch basins is not. (A design goal to minimize them to only where necessary isn't bad, however, for cost reasons, and oh yes, aesthetics.