Surface Drainage--A timeless method of influencing the direction of drain water

I think it's a common misconception of many modern architects that the old guys didn't know how to make water drain. I've seen it and I believe in it and the proof I offer, Riviera and Bel Air. Both of these sites have drainage going to one focal point--the low point of the property. If your ever at Riviera #6, go look to the far extreme right towards the ocean and you'll see an old iron drain that Billy Bell himself specified. o can find one at the bottom of the southwest end of the Arizona Biltmore and used to be able to find one emptying into the old reservoir which is now the driving range at Bel Air too.

Recently we had a thread asking if most GCA aficionados could tell good shaping from natural lay of the land. The response were dismal at best, as most couldn't nor cared to. (time prevented me from further elaborating, but hopefully this thread will suffice) I can only hope that most of you, the next time your at your faovrite course designed by some old dead guy, look at the differences of how these features were used to divert water without the use of a underground pipe.

You see, I think this is the certain charm of our timeless classics--how the lay of the land; it's features and for the most part the ability to drain water from these features that all define the golf hole itself. Getting back to Riviera and Bel Air as examples, these courses have one direct drain point, all of them obviously down their descriptive canyons which are ingeniously fed from all sorts of different points from around the golf course. Usually high points from around the golf hole and features themselves.

 These barranca/arroyo/creek-like features are the involved strategies. They help make these courses great or respected or whatever Jeff Brauer wants to call it. How are you going to do that with a pipe that is buried in the ground? That grassy Hollow which feeds that pipe is for me, unsightly, unnatural and just plain foolish in what it costs to build it from shaping to putting in the ABS plastic drain which will get broken the first mower, golf cart or 6 iron that makes contact with it. These pipes also clog with leaves, branches and other debris. This is usually when the Golf Course Superintendent would love ot get a hold of Mr. Brauer for specing that particular type of drainage.

But the point here is not that they are without merit when they are needed, it's the reliance on these collection areas, becoming an architect's best friend so-to-speak. There are just so many architects using them nowadays. they just use them WAY too much and way too freely. The bad side to this is that this drainage adds to the cost of building an affordable links, let alone an intelligent one.

Dr. Brauer implies, The advent of PVC drain pipe makes installation cheaper then ever, raising it's cost/benefit ratio to where it makes no sense not to use it.....

This is precisely the point where I think many modern golf architects lose sight of the art of designing golf courses artistically, scientifically and just using plain common sense. The cheapest way to get good drainage is not to use PVC pipe just because it and it's installation cost are a benefit, (the entire gist of his article) it's only affordable to use it when it needs to be used. The cost of labor to install which requires a crew to not only assemble lengthy stretches of PVC pipe, a man on a tractor/backhoe to utilize a trenching device which actually pulls it in, or if it's installed by a crew by hand is in no way comparable in price. AS IN THERE IS NO BENEFIT! (Mr. Brauer can argue this as much as he wants, because I have an electrical career full of trenches and pipes which to compare!) figure this for the amount of catch basins per hole and multiply it by 18, not counting a driving range or practice areas where they use them too, well your talking a lot of money when compared to a man on a bulldozer who is artfully creating surface drainage that has been designed by an architect who knows what he is doing, and after all, he's going to be out there shaping the ground anyway.

It's all common sense.

While I applaud Jeff Brauer's abilities to discern what's best and speculates what he thinks our famous great would have done today, I can assure you common sense did get the best of them after a Great Depression and a World War when financial survival mattered most. That much is for sure. Economy simply killed them and their spirit till our great architects of today who studied and emulated them brought them back alive. Look at the top ten of the Golfweek Modern list and tell me different.

While Jeff Brauer maintains that the owners and bankers know the value of good drainage to a golf course business plan, then please explain to me why so many new courses have closed because the property became more valuable then the risk of building the golf course and the costs involved?

The rest of Jeff's article is filled with the typical challenges of 'what we face against what the golden age guys did'-type of scenarios which I grow increasingly tired of with each new article, some of it may have merit, but only if you plan on having a golf course that will be about as natural as Anna Nicole Smith's breast--with houses on it. But still, I shudder to think of the time Geoff, the creator of the very article which Mr. Brauer criticizes, explained to me some years ago, when he was working at Riviera, and still in the somewhat good graces of the Watanabe family, he looked outside and saw it raining. He looked to see like he had done so many rainstorms before how the water was running through those thoughtfully constructed barrancas, but on this occasion, shortly after Poly Vinyl Chloride piping had been installed in those barrancas, that the water now started coagulating and wasn't moving like it once did before. The last time I was at the Nissan Open, it was raining and it too was the first thing that caught my eye.

George Thomas, welcome home....

No catch basins here...


Here either...

The renovations to CC Harrisburg included creating mounds and swales in the fairways and on the peripheries.  There are so many drains there now and on land that is very rolling with steep falloffs.  The redesigns obliterated all the natural sheet drainage that was used and other surface drainage techniques.  The proliferation of all the mounding and drains on a classic course has a detrimental effect on the overall experience.

As for a modern course, for all the interest and creativity at Tobacco Road, there are drains everywhere, including the bunkers!  I guess I would rather see a bit less manufactured features even if they look and play nice because the multitude of drains on that site clearly indicate that too little surface drainage techniques were used and there was an over-reliance on expensive sub-surface solutions.

Eric,

That's an important point. There are situations (climate, soil conditions, topography) that dictate the need to get surface water  into drain pipes as quickly as possible. Especially during the grow in process in areas with the potential for heavy rainfall events, the removal of water under the surface is important.

Joe

Tommy,

First of all, it was good seeing you, and I was sorry you couldn't stay for my presentation, or for that matter, that you didn't call me back with instructions to your get together, since I didn't have mine, and I wanted to go.

Second, I have great respect for Geoff, have bought all his books, and read all of his columns, many of which I agree with, but some of which I don't.  Part of this column is to generate some controversy between magazines and columnists. Thanks for forwarding part of the GCI agenda!  

So whatever Geoff bashing you percieve is all journalistic, and certainly not personal.  In fact, he actually tempered his piece with some good technical qualifications which made it harder to respond directly.  

I am getting ready for a trip right now, so I haven't digested all of your posts, but in the quick read, I really do see drainage as separate from bad routing.  That's exactly the type of generic, modern gca is bad comment I was trying to deflect.  If you are in housing, you have drainage problems.  If you site a hole in a valley, you have drainage problems.  Not so much that you wouldn't site the hole there, but enough to have to deal with it.  Providing for drainage is an evolving art, and in response to experiences of end users (ie supers) turf demands, etc.

Your photo of the soft basin area near the green is a perfect example - I doubt you could maintain turf on the green to the degree desired today if you let that slope drain right across the green.  And, if you picked up that water with a swale, you would tear out more of the native area they were trying to save.  Its a choice, and frankly, probably a good one.

As to why there are catch basins in Palm Springs - even the nuisance water from excess irrigation (required for overseeding if nothing else) or surrounding houses causes problems if allowed to run long distances.  No one at those courses will accept driving carts through or playing out of soggy fw areas.  So, drainage has evolved to meet market demand and current situations.  Wishing that there were no carts, irrigation, higher demands doesn't cut it when designing a golf course in most cases.

As to your examples of Riv and Bel Aire, I submit that they, like most courses have all had drainage (perhaps french drains instead of basins) added over the years to improve them.  If the So Cal courses have less, its climate related, which should be factored in, of course.  My column was not intended only for readers in your area.  Ask any super how much drainage he installs every year and whether or not he would have preferred it had been installed during initial construction.

I never implied that Thomas and those guys weren't great, and its not an either or choice.  In fact, I think the common thread of all eras of gca is that we do what is best given our problem sets and potential solutions.  

I will say this, if you were in the position of building a golf course, rather than being an internet critic, and you got criticised because your first course didn't drain well, and you wanted to get hired again, I believe you would learn over time the value of drainage, drainage, drainage, you might (eventually) have a different opinion.

Sean,

Thanks for the support!  Of course, you support me now, but if the Stars meet the Wings in the playoffs next month......

I agree with many of Tommy's points. And Jeff's.

Interestingly, many modern courses suffer from very poor choices relative to site selection. However, this is a reality of many modern golf developments and developers — and needs. At Coldwater near Phoenix, for example, we strategically placed 20+ catch basins (big ones!) to drain the extremely flat (5 feet of fall over 2 miles) site. To say the catch basins are the problem is obviously not correct — they enable the course and allow it to exist!

At a course I visited (and Tommy has been there, too, I might add), Max Behr choose to route a course along a pleasant barranca. A natural and striking experience...until, of couse, the barrance became a raging floodway and destroyed most of the lower holes. I don't think Behr or the modern solutions to drainage there were — either one —  very good. One was a waste of money, the other requires a concrete channel that is hardly pleasing to look at or play across.

One might argue that the Swilcan Burn is a forced design on a links...but it works for drainage.

Or that Pete Dye's Harbour Town waste area at the 16th is contrived...but it works for drainage.

Or that Oakmont's ditches are in appropriate...but they work for drainage.

Steve,

If we don't tell the viewers at home what a measured amount of rainfall over a certain area equals in gallons, the pipe size and flow chart you provided means nothing.

But, well spoken like an engineer.  

Joe

Steve — Since golf courses (most) are not prone to "fall down and collapse", drainage is far less sized than for buildings and urban areas. Usually, if a course can adequately drain in 24 hours after a large event, the owner is happy. The wisdom is that no one will be playing immediately after a large event anyway.

Mike,
The 5th hole at Longshadow, how great is that greensite?!?!?!

Sully,
As Mike states, that it is site specific, like you I think it can be discussed and I also think that's it's more then site specific, it situation specific and I state that in my post. Simply put, when the situation calls for it..

As I have highlighted to Mike, on one of his own golf holes he utilized surface drainage perfectly when the situation called for it by locating a fall-away green site near a hazard in terms of drainage and the hazard itself--to me that's golf architecture. It's a really good golf hole too. The routing of Mike's course takes you over a lot of land similar to that of Shinnecock, only it has some gulley's or creek beds which to build upon (the architecture, not to build on them) While Mike did have a collection area or two, they weren't overtly over the top. At least not in terms of what I think is over the top. Mind you this is a course that will have you seeing similarities between Pete Dye, only for me at least, it's a bit more hospitable to interesting play. (meaning less punishing, as I find most Dye courses penal to some extent.)

Tommy N,Here in the Fraser Valley of B.C(pugeot sound too I bet),we start growing webs between our fingers and feathers on our backs about Nov 1,they recede approx.may,so drainage is CRITICAL,especially as we play 12 months a year.I'm guessing your arguement is against the contrived grass hollow look.The older courses here did not have this look,yet in places I have come across 3 sided cedar planking(top and sides only) that a older member will say " I think that was installed in the 1930s when so and so farmed here".Now when we can afford it we import 6 inches of sand  to "cap" the surface for the better year round turf conditions,even costing 1 million $.Certainly too many basins are contrived,yet wouldn't the old masters have done more if they had resources and were expecting 50,000 rounds 12 months a year?I once heard shaping described as drainage,drainage,drainage....

Mike,

You designing courses for the Sandanistas?

Longshadow #5