A.G. I agree with your earlier point about more undulation of the property contributing to the drainage issues. #2 is built on what i think is the better soils site and #4 on the more elevation change site. These areas of the sandbelt can have deep sandy soils or even gumbo clay in the low areas or thin layers of sand over clay. I think Dormie Club has similar drainage issues due to more varied topo and wetlands. I'm sure Gil included more drainage in these low areas but there are limitations to trying to handle all the recent rainfall. As I stated in an earlier post these sands are marine sands deposited over the native clay soils, where ever the sand layer meets the less porous clay soil it moves laterally creating the drainage issues. So #4 may have the more desirable topo and less desirable soils. Gil stated in an ad that he thought the site on #4 was better, but that may only be in a dry season.
I doubt more undulation contributes to poor drainage. Obviously, sandy soil is better than clay, but if the catch basins are properly located (in the low spots.....) and sized, drainage should be okay. Most golfers and architects prefer small basins to be less intrusive, but in reality, under sized catch basins are usually the limiting factor in drain system capacity.
What most people don't realize is golf course architects and developers need to make a cost value judgement on what size storm and how much rain to allow to pond. While actual buildings and roads are designed to handle a so called 100 year storm, golf courses have been designed by the seat of the pants by some, for 1/4" per hour (even by some good engineers) or some lower storm. 1.5" per hour is an oft recommended standard for non health, safety, welfare drainage applications like golf courses. I have used at various times 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 inches per hour.More and more, environmental types and regulations prefer golf courses
use smaller standards, to purposely allow temporary ponding around catch basins in bigger storms (not possible in most sandy soils) to allow golf course chemicals to settle out, but which also creates longer periods of wet soils after the ponding eventually drains off. I
t would be better to collect drainage quickly and create a few larger detention basins to detain water as required, well off the golf course, or at least fairways. However, on some sites (although I doubt P4 is one of them) where detention is required, it turns out to be much easier to hold water back in numerous small basins, at the expense of turf.
The owner has to do the calculus of how many days of play are lost at various levels of drainage design. Typically, draining much more than the standards listed above doesn't allow that many more days of play, and isn't considered, except perhaps by enlightened owners who simply want the course to be nearly perfect soon after the rain stops, even at extra cost.
I don't know how the drainage system was designed there, but I believe there are many courses around the country that stay wet longer than desired in extremely rainy seasons.