Drainage

[Damon Groves]

My home course, Santa Anita in Arcadia CA, was built in the 30's on dead flat land and turned into beautiful undulating fairways with some incredible mounding. What is even more impressive is that you are hard pressed to find any drains on the course. I think over the years I have found two and yet the course drains beautifully. I have played during our rainy season at times where we had almost two inches of rain and this after days of rain and you have to purposefully look for a puddle or any standing water. I think drainage is very important and underrated and can be used to enhance the architecture of a course. For example, Pelican Hill in Newport Beach is built on a hillside so you would think their should be no drainage issues and yet there are always drainage issues. Santa Anita $25 a round. Pelican Hill $275. Drainage....priceless.

[Phil McDade]

I

Of course, this lecture is brought to you by CB (catch basin) Brauer.  I have been hammered on this site (mostly by the long departed Tommy N) for advocating drainage via catch basins.  But, as Ben notes, I do know how to drain a course built in clay soils and drain it quickly.  I realize that catch basins near greens and in oft used landing zones can detract from the play experience, even if 200 catch basins totaling perhaps 300 sq feet rarely affect play, being literally 0.007% of the total turf surface area of a golf course.  IMHO, that is not a bad tradeoff to get water off your course and keep your soils from being saturated periodically.

Jeff:

Does that .007% of the course's surface area get more than .007% of the play, because catch basins catch things other than rain, such as golf balls? I'm guessing sand traps get a larger proportion of golf balls than their surface area because of the nature of sand traps -- they tend to grab what comes in and not let it go.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Phil,

Its possible.  Catch Basins are kind of like collection bunkers and balls tend to roll to them because of gravity.

Even so, what would be the "over-under" on the number of times you had to drop a ball from a CB grate that would "ruin" your day on the golf course?  One a round?  Then it would have to be a 33% surface area of catch basins, assuming 36 full shots.  Once a year?  Over 30 rounds, then it would be 1% surface area and so on.  Even if that .007 went up 100 times to 0.7%, the average golfer would be affected about once a year.

Not bad, considering if the course doesn't drain in an area that has, say 20 rain days each golf season, then you would be affected all 20 of those days, or at least most of them.

[Phil McDade]

Jeff:

Not necessarily critical of them, just curious about your experience with them. I was watching a high school state tournament last fall at the RTJ Jr. University Ridge near Madison, WI, which is built on poorly draining soils, with a back nine routed through woods. One hole, a good one, features an uphill drive to a heavily contoured fairway that tends to gather everything toward the middle from the sides (and the deep woods). It has a catch basin right where a lot of drives end up; this one player, on the course for what looked lile the first time, found her drive sitting in the middle of the drain cover. She came to the ball with one of those "WTF?" looks (she did properly drop, after asking her playing partner for advice). My sense, looking at divots nearby, is that the drain cover gets a lot of action.

For me, more than one a round wouldn't be enjoyable -- that's about my limit. But I also tend to play older courses with natural drainage, although here in the Upper Midwest, with heavy soils, I can see the need for them. I recentlly reviewed Greg Martin's fairlw new Glen Erin GC, near Janesviile, and I don't recall coming across them. But they are somewhat prominent at URidge, a course I'm mixed about.

[Ryan Farrow]

I would take a course with good surface drainage over a course with Catch Basins every 200' down the fairway. That bowling out still concentrates water, and all of it does not end up down the pipe. Now if the fairway is shooting off a couple of percent to the rough or a natural flow line there is nowhere for the water to stay in the fairway.... Bring on the rain.

No matter what kind of surface, contained lows in the fairways usually need catch basins. I think its more of a playability and turf issue that catch basins are placed in certain spots on a sandy subsoil.... not to mention they may be collecting more water than you think.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Phil,

There are some cases where the CB needs to be in the FW.  Generally, I agree that they should be placed in the rough and in less critical fw areas.  Depending on height of cut, a golf ball will roll on its own in a fw from 5-7%.  Any basin at the bottom of such a slope will collect water.  Worse than a ball being dropped from a grate is a ball not entitled to relief right in a wet spot near a basin!

Ryan,

I know not every gca sizes drain pipes and catch basins, but I do, and there really isn't a lot of excuse for them "collecting more water than you think" is there?  I will say that I see people trying to put in CB's that are small for aesthetics and when sized, they often need to be much bigger than those 12" plastic basins we typically see.  Contractors like the 12" for cost, will tolerate 18' catch basins, but the cost of those PVC CB's really goes up when you need 24" or larger, which sometimes we do, especially if we are trying to use fewer of them and drain bigger areas.

[Ben Sims]

Jeff,

I agree.  After 25+ rounds at Wildhorse (catch basin city, no offense) I think I only took relief from the PVC twice.  The slopes weren't so egregious that you were automatically in the very bottom each time.  What I did notice however, was your use of catch basins broken up by slopes into water hazards.  It seemed that, on the holes next to the ponds, you would have a catch basin, then an area that drained directly downhill for a hundred yards or so, then another catch basin.  It made for an interesting phenomena.  That is, I learned to play target golf to different downslopes on the tee shots based on your drainage locations.

Is something you thought of?  And did you intend for the basins to play such a large part in fairway positioning of shots?

[Adam Clayman]

Joe, I'd be willing to guess those drains were brand new as of that rain I mentioned. They appeared to me to only be in the small bowl areas. Which makes sense to me. Why have standing water? Even if it's only for a few hours.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ben,

Wildhorse was dead flat. There is an old civil engineering rule that says the cost of bridge piers should equal the cost of bridge spans to make the cheapest bridge. In golf course drainage, I keep earthmoving and drainage costs about equal as sort of a test of cost efficiency.  The flatter the course, the more catch basins you need.  I believe you keep water from running more than 300 feet to avoid long, wet swales. I also believe in keeping fw ridges generally 4' high or less so golfers can see over them.  And, in Davis, I was required to drain water away from the lakes and filter it before letting it into the water, plus the little lip on the lake saves a few shots from going in the water.

Within all of that, I do sometimes put basins to shape fw with greater and lesser sloped areas. In most cases, especially when flat like Wild Horse, I accept gently rolling fw and try to stagger the basins to get that random effect rather than place them every 80 feet.

Adam,

Drainage systems are designed for 1, 2, 5, or 10 year storms.  Roads are designed for 10, 25, 50 or 100 year storms.  The reason is mostly golf course budgets usually dictate smaller drainage because there is no real harm in letting water stand a few hours in really big storm (most golfers would quit) but I agree that every day storm, usually about 1/4 to 1/2" per hour ought to be disposed of immediately.  A golf course gets a reputation for good or poor drainage, and it gets harder and harder to book tee times.  So, the question is at what point does bigger drainage pipe equal a better reputation and more revenue for the Owner?  Most don't suffer if their course goes down a few times a year, golfers understand that.  If it gets closed in every little rain, its a different matter.

[Ryan Farrow]

Jeff, I was talking about the average person/golfer. Some lows drain a much bigger "watershed" / surface area than most people recognize. Hence the need to CB's in sandy soils (sometimes) or the need for much larger CB's as you alluded to.

I still like to live by one of my college professors sayings that "all things man-made fail". Eventually that drain will fail, the pipe will break or collapse and it will need replaced. I would rather spend the extra money surface draining the fairways through extra earth moving and keep the piping and CB's to an absolute minimum. But of course, that is not always possible.

[Joe Perches]

My home course, Santa Anita in Arcadia CA, was built in the 30's on dead flat land

I don't think Santa Anita is dead flat.
It's more or less a rectangular plot with a continuous 1.5% slope on the short axis.

[Sean_A]

This is an interesting thread.  As an absolute believer in the best drainage possible, I am happy for a course to have catch basins, but not so much in fairways.  I would rather see surface drainage techniques used where reasonable.  On the flip side, meaning the watering side, sprinkler heads get in the way of golf far more than I have ever seen CBs get in the way.  We seem to think that is ok, well I don't, but its almost like SHs are part of greens these days.  If this is the case, I can't see a big issue with the odd CB if it means the course can be kept dry. 

In any case, drainage has to be an important part of design and I think surface drainage is absolutely essential to design for.  Otherwise we could have knucklehead amateurs design courses.  Its the science part of design that requires proper archies, not so much the artistic/style side. 

Ciao

[Damon Groves]

Joe -

Santa Anita was dead flat land before they decided to build the golf course. It was an Army Balloon Field and before that the original land for the race track. All of the mounding you see is man made and was done by shovel and horse. If you know the course then you know how amazing it is to know that all of that mounding was man made and done with some excellent drainage. Santa Anita is a great example of what a golf course can be....well designed, affordable to upkeep, affordable to play, and most important....Fun,