The unsolved architectural dilemma

[Patrick_Mucci]

FIRM APPROACHES.

At course after course I've seen firm fairways and greens, yet softer approaches which thwart playing short to front to middle hole locations.

I've seen clubs sand the approaches in an attempt to firm them up, but  the results don't appear to have produced a consistent playing surface from fairway to approach to green.

There can be but one culprit.............. Water

In some cases the location of the irrigation heads on the green produce soft approaches.

In other cases, the desire and quest for "green" has produced soft approaches.

When and how will this problem be solved ?

[JESII]

Pat,

Isn't this simply an attention to detail on the maintenance side?

Unless the drainage gets blocked up in front of the green, demonstrating negligence in the architecture, I can't think of any natural reason why the approach should be inconsistent with the fairways AND greens.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

Isn't this simply an attention to detail on the maintenance side?

Not necessarily

Unless the drainage gets blocked up in front of the green, demonstrating negligence in the architecture, I can't think of any natural reason why the approach should be inconsistent with the fairways AND greens.

And yet, it's almost universal, systemic.

What courses do you know of where the approach is firm ?

Have you ever seen an approach firmer than a green ?

Firmer than a fairway ?

[JESII]

Pat,

I don't play anywhere other than Huntingdon Valley regularly enough to comment and HV is definitely not inconsistent this way.

If it isn't architectural or maintenance negligence, what could be the cause?

[David_Elvins]

If it isn't architectural or maintenance negligence, what could be the cause?

Nobody knows, its an unsolved dilemma.

[JESII]

Of course...how foolish of me!!!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

I don't play anywhere other than Huntingdon Valley regularly enough to comment and HV is definitely not inconsistent this way.
So Huntington Valley is consistent in it's firmness from fairway to approach to green ?

If it isn't architectural or maintenance negligence, what could be the cause?

I know it's early and the kids deprived you of sleep last night, but how did you conclude that it's neither architectural or maintainance ?

David,  what's your excuse ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jim,

Since it's early in the morning, let me help you out.

When a green is sloped from high back to low front, as many green are, where do you think the surface water will flow ?

To the fronting approach ?  ?  ?

Would you consider the tilt of a green a maintenance issue ?

Wake up man !  

OR,

Start staying at a Holiday Inn Express

[JESII]

Yes


By my reply#1 and your response to it in reply #2

[Jeff_Brauer]

Patrick,

I am aware of one simple irrigation change that can help.

In modern irrigation design, there is usually 100% overlap with triangulated full circle heads. Typically, any point gets at pretty even watering, as being close to one sprinkler, and partially covered by two others, even in wind.

Around greens, for at least 20 years, the trend has been to use back to back 1/2 circle heads, with 4-5 aiming into the green, and 4-5 aiming out to the shoulders.  The front two green heads are usually placed left front and right front so a sprinkler (s) don't affect play.  Now add two heads in the same location, spraying out.

The unintended consequence is that all four of those heads usually stop at 90 degrees and reverse course right in the approach.  Worse, they tend to put more water where they stop and reverse, and it tends to be in the approach area.   Add in the two full circle heads also in the approach areas, and they get watered by six sprinklers, not three, with four putting more water out than normal at a critical spot.  

Two real word fixes - most new sprinklers are adjustable, and don't have to stop at 90 degrees.  Adjust those to push the reverse point somewhere less critical at some other angle than 90.  Then program the two approach area sprinklers separately from the normal fairway to reduce water from them.

In the old days of hard wired irrigation systems, we used to always put the two approach heads on their own cycles, separate from the fairways, usually so they could get a little more control.  Still a good practice, even if many supers used those to give the approach MORE water to keep it in better shape.

I do notice the wet area on greens that all drain to the front and anywhere there are big mounds around the green that contribute to the drainage.  In reality, most approaches really ought to get a 4" sand base, and maybe some of their own herringbone tiles as well if you want them firmed up.  

However, that seems to follow the lines of bunker liners, the extra irrigation we have added over the years, etc.  It seems like every time we go to great expense for perfections, we end up causing some new problem that needs to be solved.

But, I have seen pretty good results from just adjusting the sprinklers part circle throw patterns.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Yes


By my reply#1 and your response to it in reply #2

Then you need to reread my reply

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jeff,

Knowing all you listed in your response, why has the dilemma continued to exist for so long ?

A related question, and perhaps superintendents can address the issue:

If you provide less water to a putting surface, does that automatically mean that you have to raise the cut ?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Patrick,

I wrote an article on that in my Golf Course Industry column a few years ago.   Sadly, I got an email from one super who said his club fired him for not realizing what simple solution to the problem was.  

However, the column was based on then new research by Jim Moore of the USGA, but he let me publicize the results a bit.  If more people realized this, I am sure they would implement it.  Part to part heads aren't universal, and so it may not be common knowledge, and any super who gets an "upgraded" system needs to learn how to tweak it (no, not twerk it) although a few never make the connection.  

Given all the part circle stuff came as a result of trying to get more control over a critical area - the green - maybe its just indicative that the approach is still the most undervalued part of a golf course with our aerial game.

[Lou_Duran]

This one- soft approaches- keeps coming up year after year.  Most supts. I talk to are aware of "the problem", though I sense that they see it as an issue for relatively few members/customers and not as easily solvable as seems to be implied.  No doubt that irrigation design is a problem, but so might be course design (raised greens with surface drainage primarily from back to front, siting some greens on low spots to promote visibility and downhill shots), construction, materials, and grass selection.

I watched Jim Urbina instruct the construction crew at Rawls on expanding the approach area some 20-30+ yards and spreading a layer of the same sand used on the grees (I thought it was 6" to 9", but it may have been less or more).  For the most part, the ground game works at Rawls, but I hear that the benefactor prefers a more verdant maintenance regime.

My recollection of Great Southwest after the original hybrid Bermuda fairways had mostly mutated back to Common but before the owner instructed Jeff Brauer to raise the greens  was that the approaches were relatively firm and conducive to the ground game.  419, and now zoysia at the more upscale private clubs, just seem to work against the run-up shot.  Maybe not everything new is good for the game, though perhaps our focus here is not representative of what the consumer wants (in the case of fairways, green grass that supports the ball like it's on a tee).  

[Tom_Doak]

I watched Jim Urbina instruct the construction crew at Rawls on expanding the approach area some 20-30+ yards and spreading a layer of the same sand used on the grees (I thought it was 6" to 9", but it may have been less or more).  For the most part, the ground game works at Rawls, but I hear that the benefactor prefers a more verdant maintenance regime.

We did that, yes, but it was tough going for a while.  The sandy approach wasn't getting ENOUGH water relative to the green, and grow-in was a bitch as a result.

One of the reasons I love working on sandy soils, and love working with all fescue, is that it eliminates all these problems.  If you've got the same soil everywhere and the same grass type and the same irrigation coverage, you get the same bounce everywhere.  When you have USGA sand-based greens, and topsoil approaches, and bluegrass roughs around the green that require MORE water than the green, all within the reach of one irrigation head, your superintendent has to be awfully diligent and on top of things in order to deliver the result you are asking for.  Which is why I struggle to understand why so many superintendents want to make the whole system as complicated as possible.

[Lou_Duran]

Which is why I struggle to understand why so many superintendents want to make the whole system as complicated as possible.

Is it the superintendent who seeks complexity, or that a very large percentage of golfers live in areas with heavy soils but still wish to play courses with similar playing characteristics as those blessed with a sand base?  I think that the problem may be that a course can't be all things to all people and the supt. has to choose which constituency he will attempt to please.  In most places I've played, green and soft (as most often is the case unless complexity and $$$$ is introduced) is preferred to firm, tight, and discolored.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom Doak,

Interesting points.

When you design a course, is the irrigation system part and parcel of your design, or an element independent of your design work ?

Since the problem seems almost universal on existing courses, how do you go about fixing it ?

I know some clubs have dug out the approaches and filled them with more of a sand mix, but, as you say, that can become unsightly.

When courses commit to regrassing, is that the time to address this issue ?

Given that many clubs don't have the luxury of sand based soils, what's the curative approach for them ?

[Tom Bacsanyi]

This one- soft approaches- keeps coming up year after year.  Most supts. I talk to are aware of "the problem", though I sense that they see it as an issue for relatively few members/customers and not as easily solvable as seems to be implied.  No doubt that irrigation design is a problem, but so might be course design (raised greens with surface drainage primarily from back to front, siting some greens on low spots to promote visibility and downhill shots), construction, materials, and grass selection.

I watched Jim Urbina instruct the construction crew at Rawls on expanding the approach area some 20-30+ yards and spreading a layer of the same sand used on the grees (I thought it was 6" to 9", but it may have been less or more).  For the most part, the ground game works at Rawls, but I hear that the benefactor prefers a more verdant maintenance regime.

CommonGround has sandcapped approaches too.  They seem to play decently firm.  

Another problem could be thatch.  You can shut the irrigation off and have the grass on the edge of death, but if there's excessive thatch underneath it will still play like spongecake.  While many supers are diligent about verticutting/topdressing their greens, many approach/chipping areas get left by the wayside.  For example, a higher-end facility might verticut/topdress greens once a month in addition to spring/fall aerification, but never verticut or topdress approaches and only aerify/topdress in spring and fall.  I would advocate for extending the greens verticut/topdress out into the fairway and into any shortgrass chipping areas on the same schedule, or even more often given that golfers would grumble less over disturbed apps than greens.  But alas, budgets are tight and this costs more money.  

The tl;dr solution:

1)  Construction:  Don't pinch pennies on approaches, pinch them elsewhere (CARTPATHS?!?!).  Whatever depth of sand in the greens construction, extend that out a ways into the surrounds.  The Rawls model mentioned above.

2)  Cultivation:  Less thatch, more sand.  V-Cut, aerify, topdress more often.

I think if you are solid on these practices the irrigation issues will be solved on their own.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom,

Isn't part of the problem inherent in the design when a green slopes from back to front ?

How do you mitigate the natural flow of surface water ?

[Ian Andrew]

One expensive solution is to build the bounce in approach using the same drainage spacing and mix as the green.
The depth of mix depends on what's underneath and how you are trying to manage this area, but the firmness is now a given.

As Jeff said, the irrigation design in this area needs to address what your trying to accomplish.
It will take more heads.

[Mike_Young]

There is a simple way to work this.  Hand water....I know of at least onemajor venue course with a 2 million dollar irrgation system and he laughs that he still hand waters.  If some of the smaller courses would just back off the complicated systems and spend the money on a guy that does nothing but hand water then much of this would go away.  Another solution in clay soils is to aerify about 6 inches in depth and fill with coarse sand and profile.  And do it several times over several years....
BUT IMHO the real problem is there are still more guys that want a top flite to "plug" than there are guys that want firm and fast..

[Don_Mahaffey]

I don't believe it is unsolvable at all.

First, an irrigation primer.
Although I do see things changing a bit, for the most part irrigation design is still all about achieving a uniform application of water on the SURFACE. I capitalize the word surface because I believe that is the flawed approach in modern irrigation design, but we'll get back to that.
So, we use computer tools like SpacePro software from the Center for Irrigation Technology to try and find the best possible sprinkler/nozzle/pressure combination to give us surface uniformity that looks like this on the computer screen:


(BTW, this particular densogram has heads spaced at 77', it doesn't take tight spacing to achieve uniformity)

This particular sprinkler layout has a distribution uniformity in excess of 86% in the lab. And in the real world with topography and slight pressure differences at the base of each head, if installed properly with a proper hydraulic design, it will still top out close to 80% when measured with the old catch can method.

Now, if you are trained in the art of irrigation management, then you know 80% is not 100% and so you have to turn up the run times to  make up for that missing 20%. I will not spend a ton of time on this, but this IMO, is a seriously flawed approach.

Before I go into how I think irrigation should be scheduled, keep in mind that each one of those red dots represents a sprinkler that is individually controled in any modern system put in the ground in the last 10 years (at least all the ones I've seen). So every sprinkler can be individually controlled and programmed, and in many case even the arc can be individually adjusted, throw in the possible nozzle combinations and the superintendent has literally thousand of possible adjustments he can make to perfectly irrigate that area for playability.

But, what basis does he use to make those hardware adjustments and scheduling adjustments? Now we return to the word SURFACE.
We do not need water on the surface, we need water in the rootzone. And what we really need is water deep (3"-6") in the rootzone so we can grow healthy deep rooted turf instead of shallow rooted weak turf that requires nightly irrigation resulting in a boggy surface most of the time.

IMO, irrigation system audits should not be conducted on the surface with catch cans, but in the soil with soil moisture monitoring equipment. Why does this matter? Because scheduling based on soil moisture results in a dry surface and dramatically less water use. If you only apply water when the soil is ready to take water, it has somewhere to go. If you apply water based on weather factors that do not include knowing what is actually happening in the ground, you will over irrigate.

So, back to the original dilemma. If the superintendent wants to know the proper soil moisture for his soil and his turf that gives him healthy turf and a good golfing surface, then he uses a tool like this to track soil moisture and schedule his irrigation:
http://www.specmeters.com/soil-and-water/soil-moisture/fieldscout-tdr-meters/tdr300/

And he tracks his soil moisture in his approaches and makes the proper adjustments. One head may run for 8 minutes, another for 11, another for....eventually he will nail the proper moisture and he will provide his golfers with a nice surface most of the time.

He'll have to combine his soil monitoring with cultural practices that keep the soil open and accepting water and he'll learn where he has no choice but to add drainage, but most importantly he'll be managing from the roots up and no super cool irrigation equipment or software will replace that knowledge.  This approach is in wide use, and some of the more famous golf courses in this country are doing it, but it can still be a very hard sell.  Most clients, especially public clients that have been attending irrigation seminars are very adverse to letting go of the densogram, DU, surface measurement approach to irrigation scheduling and design.

We try and make things so complicated in this business. If you don't want to be fat, don't eat to much and push your body once in a while with exercise.
If you don't want wet ground, don't add water until it is dry. I'm telling you, it isn't that hard.

[Tom_Doak]

One expensive solution is to build the bounce in approach using the same drainage spacing and mix as the green.
The depth of mix depends on what's underneath and how you are trying to manage this area, but the firmness is now a given.

As Jeff said, the irrigation design in this area needs to address what your trying to accomplish.
It will take more heads.

Ian:

To your first point, as noted above, we have built a couple of courses where we tried to modify the soils in the approaches and/or chipping areas.  "Expensive" does not begin to describe it.  It's complicated -- trenching irrigation into areas of mix is not easy to do, and therefore more expensive.  But when you really start thinking about how far out in front of the green you might want the sand to go, you can wind up needing more than double the area of the green itself.  That's REALLY expensive.

As for the irrigation design, "more heads" is most irrigation designers' approach, but consider why.  As Don says, what you really need is a superintendent who's monitoring the needs of the turf and adjusting the heads he's got, instead of running all of them for the same amount of time and wishing for an even more expensive and complicated system.  If superintendents had to pay for the irrigation system out of their own future earnings, I wonder which direction things would be headed.

[Thomas Dai]

Per Mike Young - "hand water" - yip, agree, plus.....sell all the ride on green mowers so maintenance folk have to use walk-behind power mowers and thus can feel the putting surfaces with their feet and better determine whether any hand watering is actually really needed (or isn't needed).
All the best.