We have developed two separate issues here in my mind. I felt as if Mark was talking fw and rough drainage initially, by mentioning catch basins, and I have never seen a cb in a green, but we have morphed to the greens.
I did notice that the Lehigh greens had more water concentrated on them in the photos than some of the fw, which I thought was odd, given they are small drainage areas, and always at the top of the watershed. I also noticed that Flynn only uses one drainage swale, at least from the photos presented, whereas two drainage swales incorporated into the design would reduce that green surface water concentration.
I agree with Mr. Mahaffey - there is a sum total of conditions to address. irrigation alone won't do it, as TEPaul suggests, but it might help (see below) In the case of Rolling Hills, I will add that most courses that try limited solutions (adding drain tile in existing turf) usually end up biting the bullet and rebuilding the soil zone of their greens. Starting from scratch usually (despite a few horror stories out there) is the best way to attack soil problems, which usually are signigant components to drainage.
In most cases, drying out the course with less irrigatino probably won't affect its drainage. They are often/usually two separate issues, unless the rain on a given night just happens to equal the net turf deficit.
Field capacity is measured in inches, and varies from perhaps 1" in clays to 4 or 5 inches in sand. Thus, if soil field capacity is 3 inches, and the water capacity if full, the course should theoretically shed/surface drain 100% of rainfall.
If soil field capacity is 1 inch less than full capacity, then in theory, anything up to a 1" rain should soak in. However, this is also affected by soil percolation rate. If the soil perc rate is only 0.5" per hour, and that one inch rain falls evenly over two hours, there should be no runoff. If it falls even briefly at higher rates, that water will run off, even if there is soil capacity available to accept it. And, sloped areas drain differently than flat ones, treed areas different than turf, etc. so there is always some runoff in most rains.
Net, Net, even the best irrigation practices wouldn't take away the need for drainag, although "it can't hurt".
The thing about water is your soil only momentarily EVER has "just the right amount" of soil moisture. After signifigant rain or irrigation, soils may be filled to field capacity, and they immediately begin losing moisture to evapotranspiration (evt) and plant use. If it it rains too little, you need irrigation at some point, and if it rains too hard, the excess runs off, and you need drainage. It a constant balancing act for supers.
If not watered, they can theoretically go to about 1/3 of field capacity and have the turf survive, although I doubt most supers would let available moisture dip much below 50%. Signs of wilt, including foot printing, let them know it is getting critical.
Modern computers are inherently set up to measure how much evt there was last night and replace that fully. I would like to see those supers replace about 80% of evt nightly, to keep things dry, but survibable, and counting on rain filling the soil back up every ten days or so. Obviously, he/she needs to monitor conditions, and of course, this plan doesn't work in the desert!
Some supers use less frequent irrigation, and can go 4 or more days between wilting, depending on soil and weather before filling the tank up fully, with deep infrequent irrigation, to start the cycle again.
I suspect that the most "firm and fast" committed supers let the course dry out to 50% available moisture in late spring, and then replaces evt loss every few days, rather than every day, taking the chance that the turf goes to its wilting point every so often.
Obviously, a watering scenario where there may be and inch or more soils ability to absorb water reduces runoff more often than at a course with no more than 0.25" of water deficit on any given night. Its just that no one can predict rainfall amounts and intensity, so its never a perfect match, and you always have runoff.