[Paul Payne]

I am wondering how much is or can be done to adjust the soil characteristics when building fairways? I have noticed that high end courses in the same area (sometimes on the same road) can have dramatically different turf or soil characteristics.

 My preceptions have been that in all of my travels there are essentially three basic types of soil (with a zillion variations). I know absolutely nothing about this subject so these are my impressions.

1) Sandy loam which is relatively loose (doesn't clump) but sort of firm and consistent. This is my favorite. It seems to provide a nice bite and you will create perfect divots. The clubhead will move through the turf very smoothly and evenly. The surface can play fast and firm while still being very playable.

2) Rich loamy earth. My second favortite. Seems to "break free" easily when making a divot. Doesn't provide as much bite on the ball and the clubhead moves through the turf a little more irregularly. Has a kind of "foamy" feel and conditions can vary more. These surfaces usually play a bit sluggish

3) Rich dense soil with clay. My least faviorite. The clubhead "smears" through the turf. The bite on the ball can range from great to none. Conditions vary even more. The surface can play very firm when dry, but very NOT firm when wet.

My quesiton is; how much attention is paid to blending or creating not just a good growing base but a good playing base? I realize there is obviously a great cost that could be associated with the idea of making major adjustments to the soil. In fact, I am not even sure if it is possible over the long term.

What I really wonder is, if it is possible, how much of these types of expenses would be trimmed by the developer during construction for more visually apealing features (such as fountains and statues, or even neat looking bunkers on yonder bluff). Is this something that architects are able to pay much attention to or are you pretty much stuck with what you've got on any site?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Paul,

Traditionally courses were built with the soil God gave them.  Imported soils started in use very early on greens, and by the 60's sand greens were almost standard.

Later, sand based tees became standard, as the second most compaction prone area on a golf course.  The vast acreage of fairways (25-40 vs. 4 acres for greens and tees) stopped the idea of capping with sand for those areas. Now, upper tier projects do consider sand cap fw to get perfect conditions.  Roughs and mid tier projects are sure to follow within the decade.

When using native soils, we use agronomists to test the soils and make other recommendations other than capping with better stuff.  Usually, fertilizer, PH correction and some other ammendments are doable and create decent soils.  Mixing sand with soil sometimes makes it more compaction prone than if left alone, and is rarely recommended.  BTW, in this day and age, my experience is that water quality is a bigger turf growth issue than soil issues, but thats not universal.

I suspect that almost any developer would spend on good soils first, as it is part of basic construction, before springing for waterfalls, but I suppose its happened, esp. when housing developers only care about the course as long as it sells lots, and not about the long term.  Most of them can't even afford the landscape plants after basic construction.

There was a time when playing off of different surfaces -turf and soil - as you traveled the country was viewed as a plus for golf.  The more we use construction techniques to standardize playing surfaces, the more each regions golf courses look like each regions strip malls, chain restaurants, etc.  I am not sure that type of standardization is necessarily desireable, even if it ever becomes financially feasible.

[Steve Lang]

 

You may want to look at soil survey data for your area..

http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/DataAvailability/SoilDataAvailabilityMap.pdf

or learn more about soils at

http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/WebSoilSurvey.aspx

.. from my experience in environmntal reviews of land application for wastewaters and sludges, you'll sometimes find great variety of soils within small parcels of land (10-80 acres)..  perhaps more pronounced in some glaciated areas

[Dave_Wilber]

I can honestly and with a deep depth of experience say that there certainly isn't enough attention paid to soil.

And there really is so much that can be done with just about any soil during the construction phase to put it into a a great er performance state for turfgrass. It's really not that expensive, but does often require rethinking typical construction methods like material handling, stockpile managment, traffic control and preplant soil development.

There is so much room for improvement in this area that I don't even know where to begin talking about it and if I get started, you guys will be subjected to another 10K words from me.

[Gary Daughters]

Dave,

Let 'er rip!

[Paul Payne]

I'll second Gary's motion.

The responses so far are interesting and have me even more curious. It would appear that developing soil in order to create a better playing surface is not all that far fetched or overly expensive. It makes me wonder why more attention is not paid to this.

I also wonder about the longevity of a project like this. Will the soil slowly revert back to its natural state or can these adjustments be sustained? Does this pose a higher cost option in regard to maintenance?

[Paul Payne]

Jeff, Thanks for your response on this. It is interesting to hear an inside view on this topic.

I am really torn on your comment on regional differences and how we may be seeing a "strip mall" mentality in regard to turf and soil conditions,which may I suppose take away from some of the local character.

On one hand I can clearly see your point. I do enjoy the differences you experience playing Bermuda vs Bentgrass etc. On the other hand, I look at this as I would any other sport in developing playing court technology or track bed technology. I can see the need to continually improve and develop the quality of the palying surface.

The problem with this is how much of the local characteristics of the terrain will be changed on account of this? My opinion would be that I do like an excellent playing surface but I don't want all courses to look the same. Is this even possible? Can you improve the substrate without significantly changing the terrain?

[Bradley Anderson]

When a golf course is being built in conjunction with a housing development, the topsoil over the entire property is generally stripped with scrapers and then stockpiled on what will eventually be the last homesites to sell.

The scraper is a back breaker to operate; generally, one doesn't put the best operators on scrapers. The depth of the scraper blade must be constantly adjusted because the depth of topsoil varys from area to area over the site. Occasionally the blade will go too deep, and the subsoil will get mixed with the topsoil. This has the overall effect of diluting the percent organic matter of the topsoil.

The topsoil pile is taking up valuable space on the development, so it needs to be built up as high as possible. This necessitates the use of a sheepsfoot compactor to push cavities and air pockets out of the topsoil pile so it will be safe for the scraper operators to climb up and over as they dump succesive loads on the higher elevations. The higher the pile, the more compacted the soil, and the last soil on the pile will be used on the golf course, because the course will sell the home lots.

After the home pads and adjoining golf holes are graded, the topsoil is gathered, again by the scraper and, respread on the golf hole. On a development course a lot of moonscaping and containment mounding is needed, so the topsoil will have to be spread thinner to cover the dramatic increase in surface area that the "natural looking mounds" have generated.

Now we run a land leveler over the top soil for a smooth grade; we can't allow any quirky lies or undulations on our fairways. Next a rock picker is brought in to shred the soil and remove the rocks.

Finally we run a gill rake over the soil to provide a smooth seed bed.


If at any point the project falls behind schedule, any one or more of these operations will have to be applied to wet soils.

In conclusion, the treatment of soil, particularly on development golf courses, should be against the law. What Mother Nature took hundreds of years to create is destroyed in hours and minutes, and it will take decades to restore the structure and humis of the topsoil.

The reason why older golf courses look healthier, and generally firm up and play better after rain, is because the soil structure is intact.

[Tony_Muldoon]

The reason why older golf courses look healthier, and generally firm up and play better after rain, is because the soil structure is intact.

This topic is (to the best of knowledge as a two year lurker/poster) "breaking new ground". Everytime someone show a bias for older courses are they unknowlingly just choosing the better soil structure?  The quaote above explanis a lot and although I thought I understood a little bit about soil structure, this is great stuff.

How long can it take to recover from this kind of treatment?  Does soil ever recover in worst cases?  What can be done to speed up this process?  I have milion questions on this and I hope those who know more about this subject will give us more info on this thread.

[Gary Daughters]

Bradley,

Great post.  Some ignorant but well-meaning questions:

What is the intrinsic value of the topsoil that is lost?

Given the unavoidable fact that building a golf course requires lots of disturbance and outright destruction, what is lost by moving around some topsoil.. relative, say, to cutting down hundreds of trees or diverting natural sources of water.

If there is a deeply negative impact on the environment, why then would topsoil preservation not come under environmental regulations that govern other aspects of course construction?

Thanks in advance.  Your earlier post was remarkably informative.

[Don_Mahaffey]

I know not everyone who builds courses today is ignorant enough to manage their soil as Bradley describes.
This is Dave W's realm as he has assisted in the creation of some great golf courses and he knows a lot more then me about soil management.
But, I do know that top soil is in essence "alive" and it needs air to stay alive. As soon as it is pushed into a huge pile, compacted, and ultimately turned to mud if your not careful, it's no longer alive. I do believe it can be revived, but it takes patience and that is usually lacking at the tail end of a new construction.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bradley,

While your description is fairly accurate, I think you must have had a really bad construction experience up there!  On my projects, golf course stockpiles are kept on each hole to reduce haul distances, and thus aren't built up as much as you describe.  And, I have never seen a sheeps foot roller used on topsoil piles on my projects.  That does seem counter productive.  At least you didn't have a bad contractor who tried to convince owners that you really don't need to strip it, and just bury it.

Moving topsoil and breaking it up would seem to be a compaction reducer among other things. And when you take the grass and roots, you actually add organic, providing you leave is stockpiled long enough for those to break up.

While you are right that moonscapes do increase surface area by about 10%, if topsoil is stripped out of lakes, and deeper than 6' wherever found, there should be enough to cover critical areas, perhaps shorting the far roughs.

However, why, as someone in the golf industry, would you advocate that the government stop topsoil handling specifically for golf courses?  I don't think we need another layer of government regulations.  If we need some best practices guides, then we can develop them ourselves.

And do you think golf courses treat soil worse than housing/other developers?

Dave,

Other than Bradley above and yourself, I have never heard anyone in the industry worry about the soil structure to the degree you do.  As you and Don M note, it is usually possible to take soil tests and make recommendations to restore organics, fertility, PH, etc. On a recent project, our agronomist (Terry Buchen, who sometimes comes on here) argued hard and successfully that cutting certain aspects of his soil ammendment program to cut $40K from the budget was penny wise and pound foolish, avoiding that cut back, so I agree there is that pressure.

I would love to see for my own information - in either a shortened version of your 10K word thesis or through a web link to yours or other writing on the subject - some scientific info on what detrimental effect moving topsoil around twice actually does to its structure,  that is can't be repaired/replaced if necessary.

Like environmental complaints about what disasters golf courses are, where the same three incidents over four decades keep popping up, it seems common sense that since 14,900 of the 15,000 USA golf courses probably stripped topsoil and replaced it somewhere, that we would have heard of these problems in some industry journal somewhere by now.  Then again, I don't read them all, so I may have missed something!

Besides my own use, I would hate to have this be another "mantra" or accepted fact on this board if it ain't substantially true.  Thanks in advance.

[Joe Hancock]

My thinking is that each time the soil is moved...whether physically relocated or rolled over with bucket or blade...there is some pulverization, or refinement of particle size occuring. Any time the particles get smaller, the drainage suffers, along with the soils' ability to maintain an appropriate amount of oxygen.

Build with as few of strokes as possible while getting it right. That is the goal.

Joe

[Gary Daughters]

Can anyone explain how dirt "dies."  And how does that happen when water hits it and turns it to mud?

[Don_Mahaffey]

Gary,
Dirt doesn't die. But, grass that is planted in compacted, anaerobic soil does die.
It's not that hard to get a grow in done in bad soil as pouring the N and water to it with no traffic usually produces a nice lush, green surface. It's after a year of 20,000 carts that the price is paid and it's usually paid by the super, not the knuckleheads who destroyed the soil in the first place.

[Gary Daughters]

Thanks Don..

For us ignoramouses (and I have no problem admitting that I am one) can anyone explain compaction.  I do have an inkling as to what is being talked about, yet I've seen the term tossed around so much that it seems it's a very big thing.

For us commoners .. what is it, why does it happen, why is it detrimental, and how is combatted?

Thanks in advance.  This is a great learning thread.  

[Bradley Anderson]

Sorry I have not responded Jeff to your comments - I am just now getting back to read them.

Let me say that I am not suggesting that topsoil movement in golf construction should come under government regulations.

But there is something happening to topsoil on many new golf courses. The golf course which I built in 1994 is just now beginning to behave like a mature golf course, and we went to great lengths to preserve the topsoil structure when we built. For the record, my construction experience was a positive one.

I find it very interesting that before mass grading was common in golf course construction, drain tile was used very extensively, in lieu of reshaping the land for surface drainage. In 1913 Donald Ross installed 60,000 feet of drain tile at Old Elm Club in Chicago. I have seen the drainage plans that Seth Raynor produced for one club and they were, in my opinion, more sophisticated than the average modern irrigation system. But these men had to invest a lot in drainage because they didn’t have the tools to make enormous changes to the grades. In those places where the water moved slowly, they installed tiles. But in our current day efforts to hasten the flow of water off the golf course, it seems to me that we have created extraneous movement of terrain and topsoil to the detriment soil structure. Stated another way: the technology that we use to make water move sideways across and off the surface, is leaving us with a soil that does not allow water to flow downwards and through the soil.

It’s helpful to remember that soil comes from weathered rocks and decaying plant material. Let me paraphrase some lines from Robert Emmons Turf grass Science and Management.

Coarse-grained rocks tend to produce a sandy soil, and fine grained rocks tend to form a clay soil.

Sand is ideal for resisting compaction and for providing good drainage, but sand does not hold water or nutrients as effectively as clay.

Clayey soils can provide fairly good drainage however. Decaying plant material and microorganisms release compounds that cement clay particles together. The clay particles come together to form aggregates, and in the voids between the aggregates air, roots, and water may move in and out of the soil quite effectively.

Good soil structure can solve many of the problems caused by an unsatisfactory soil texture. But good soil structure can be easily destroyed by improper management. When a granular soil structure collapses under compaction, the soil becomes denser, with less pore space for roots, water, and air movement.

There are several things that we can do in golf course construction to preserve what we may of the soil structure that is in site.

We might leave more of the terrain alone. We should trust the land more to yield something interesting.

Do our grading operations in zones, so that stripping operations can move the soil to areas that are graded and already prepared for respread. This eliminates an entire motion, and it eliminates the need to create compacted stockpiles.

Cease all work when the topsoil is wet. If you make a ball of topsoil and drop it to the ground and it sticks together, then it’s too wet to work.

Stay away from the old style rock pickers which shred the soil.

Don’t over work the soil with the final raking. Soil particles in a properly prepared seedbed should range in size from as small as a pea to an inch in diameter.

Take soil tests and apply lime, fertilizer, or organic matter for improving the structure. Lime and phosphorus move especially slow through the soils, so it is ideal to work these in before seeding. Lime helps the clay particles bind together. Phosphorus will help the plants develop a good root system.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bradley,

Thanks for the response. For the most part, I do all the things you suggest on my job. I must admit, I don't inspect the rock pickers used. What models are you recommending based on your experience?  And I do understand the contractors pressure to sometimes replace topsoil when it is too wet, and can't say that has never happened on one of my projects.  I still think the moving process, unless wet, can aerate the soil rather than compact it, but do encourage moving it once to the next hole.  And most contractors seem to prefer moving it once for cost reasons, but are usally no more than 66% effective for various scheduling reasons, so some areas inevitably get stripped and stockpiled.  

The only thing I am potentially disagreeing with is the idea of 60,000 of french drains in lieu of surface drainage.  I was always taught (first by Wadsworth, in an interesting story I may retell some time) that you take care of surface water problems with surface solutions and subsurface water problems with subsurface solutions.

We used to cut fw french drains into clubs that simply didn't want to replace their turf, but I have always preferred to recontour in a fw is too flat to drain by itself.  Reason is french drains tend to clog over time.

I understand your points about Chicago clay, having started my career there and then moving to Texas where the clay is if anything, even heavier!

[Scott Witter]

Jeff:

I have followed this thread and though I too am inclined to offer an extensive response as Dave Miller desires...I will be brief.

My background includes a civil engineering degree as well as an LA degree and during my frustrating moments in civil school, I did find the classes on soil mechanics, foundations, natural processes, and soil investigations to be very interesting and enlightening.  Believe it or not, soil structure IS quite powerful and the naturally occuring internal drainage, or free draining soils with their uniquely balanced; pore ratios for air and water, bulk density and its direct relationship and influence on the total porosity, are just some of the key ingredients, if you will, to having great topsoil and maintaining, or not disturbing that structure is largely the secret to having better fairways, etc.

Dave and others have covered it and I can only emphasize the importance of 'sensible care and organized management' during soil movement, stockpiling.  Now I realize that often this is very difficult to do in a manner that 'protects' soil structure, but I also don't think many architects give this seemingly inconsequential task enough attention.  I don't have the answers, but I think it is worth the effort to look deeper.  This of course plays into the importance of finding and working with a great natural site that allows us the opportunity to avoid soil movement, or at least keep it to a minimum and maintain the original soil structure.  Hey, if it is working well before we got there, then if at all possible, we should do what we can to minimize the disruption.

Though Dave didn't get into it, and while returning to the scene of the crime to add pre-plant items, lime, fert's, I think all these items are valuable, but really just bandaids in the big picture.  I also think this is also the secret to the old ways of greens construction with natural soils...the horses and man power with small tools that went into these efforts were not normally disruptive enough to rearrange the soil structure.  Consequently, this is why we can still find so many old greens that perform very well and why it is so challenging to come in and rebuild a green here and there. I can't tell you how many superintendents I have met who say..."hey man, don't mess with my greens...they work, I may not know why? but they work!"

[Norbert P]

 Like humans, soil needs air to survive.  What follows is a ditty that my soils professor seared into my anaerobic brain. . .

 Man can live for several days without food . . .
 a few days without water . . .
 4 minutes without oxygen  . . .
 and not a second without hope.
 
 The most informative book I've read on the subject of soil sciences is "Hands On Agronomy" by Niel Kinsey.  

[John Chilver-Stainer]

As I understand it, one of the most important aspects of the protection of soil, with respect to it’s self draining characteristics, is the avoidance of the compaction of the "subgrade". Although compaction of "top soil "is to be avoided at all costs the compaction is recoverable through frost action, drying out, root decay, worm activity and of course aerification - even if slowly.

Stripping large areas of "topsoil" for minor landscape alterations exposes the "subgrade". If the weather turns nasty and the bulldozers, under pressure of the construction program, run backwards and forwards over the "subgrade" it will be compacted and lose it's self-draining characteristics. It will take much longer for "subgrade" to recover from compaction than "topsoil".

Covering the "subgrade" with good "topsoil" won’t help much either, as surface water which infiltrates through to the compacted subgrade can’t “self drain” leading to boggy areas, and all the problems that come with it.

So from the soil protection point of view, leaving as much of the existing terrain undisturbed as possible is the better option. However if one has to move earth material, then the careful choice of machines and methodology under the right conditions will go along way to avoiding compaction damage.

As they say " the less you mess with Mother Nature the less the mess".

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