Brown - Green - Brown Fairways? Isn't there a better way?

[Paul Gray]

I do now see you point.

I'll leave it to those that know the practicalities of maintenance to answer the question.

[Mark Pearce]

Second best would have been to go all-in and remove all irrigation lines and the course today would be brown from wall-to-wall...which is my favorite golf color.

So true.  It seems that Pinehurst could easily have been mostly brown this weekend, rather like Hoylake in 2006.  That would undoubtably have seen it play brilliantly and would also, perhaps, helped spread the message that bright green is a bad colour in golf.  I hope that the only reason we are seeing so much green is a need to maintain the course for the women next week.

[jeffwarne]

Second best would have been to go all-in and remove all irrigation lines and the course today would be brown from wall-to-wall...which is my favorite golf color.

So true.  It seems that Pinehurst could easily have been mostly brown this weekend, rather like Hoylake in 2006.  That would undoubtably have seen it play brilliantly and would also, perhaps, helped spread the message that bright green is a bad colour in golf.  I hope that the only reason we are seeing so much green is a need to maintain the course for the women next week.

Despite the fact that I really like the overall look and way it's playing, I think you're both right.
More rows of irrigation could be great for WHEN/if you needed it.(perhaps they don't want spray to hit the native sandy areas)
Just because you have more options doesn't mean you couldn't still significantly cut water use.
Having the guts and discipline to not use it would be the bigger issue.

I must say though, I really do like the way the fairway gently transitions though.
Maybe the answer is simply less water on the tees and center.

They do have an event next week though

[Randy Thompson]

Jon,

Playability is most important...I've said that.

If you were starting from scratch, and building fairways ranging from 40 to 50 yards wide, would you put in single line irrigation?

Yes, without hesitation, been there, done that and with good results. 40 to 45, no problem, fifty pushes it!

[Tom Bacsanyi]

I love the single line.  It very nearly eliminates the possibility of irrigation overspray, which is critical for the continuing establishment of the native areas.  If the naturalized areas are catching irrigation water, then the naturalized areas are not natural.  Plus, say No. 2 had partial throw heads on the periphery of the fairways.  Just because they are throwing where they are supposed to doesn't mean there won't be overspray.  For one, wind can cause havoc, and they can work their way out of adjustment.  Furthermore, water thrown in the right place can run along the ground into the wrong place.  I spend a lot of time at a course that has maintained, irrigated turf bordering along native areas everywhere.  The stuff one yard off the maintained area is easily the nastiest, foulest shit on the course.  If you don't lose your ball, you are lucky to move it 10 feet.  The other thing I like is that the fairway itself becomes graduated rather than binary.  The further off line your ball goes the more the fairway punishes the shot.  So really wide fairways play narrower.  Does it look pretty?  Not really, but I bet it plays pretty.  Can anyone currently at Pinehurst comment on how it looks in the flesh vs. on TV?

[Stuart Hallett]

First of all, I think the general set-up looks great !
Single line irrigation will nearly always produce this look, especially in hot climates. I would suggest that 3 lines would mean less water needed in the middle, thus a more gradual & natural transition of grasses and color (green or brown, whatever). If some spray hits the edges of native areas then I don't really see the problem, this would again give a nice random transition.
Playing conditions would also benefit if the fairways were slightly more uniform & some green and bunker surrounds would also benefit from a less radical approach in terms of irrigation.
Having said that, I'm really enjoying watching the tour Pros play this type of golf course.

[Jon Wiggett]

But as the grass growth slow down and it goes brown this just means less mowing and possibly a higher height of cut. I agree that single line leads to a greener area in a line but if the contrast is so extreme why not just water less and raise the height a little? Even with triple line irrigation you will end up with a transition some where.

Jon

[Paul Gray]

Jon,

You lead in to something I've been pondering for a while....

With water usage on the planet increasingly an issue, with golf grasses needing limited mowing so as to establish good root bases and with many high handicappers struggling with real lean fairways I wonder whether VERY limited water and slightly higher cut short stuff is the answer?

[Josh Stevens]

Is this just a watering issue? I heard comment about centre line watering but wasnt sure if that was the literal truth- is there just a single line of sprinklers down the middle? Sounds all very rustic but a line of circles is not especially efficient when it comes to coverage- lots of overlap and lots of gaps

[Patrick_Mucci]

Josh,

You've hit  on a good point.

Many single line systems have heads feeding off lines at 90 degrees from the main line.

With wide fairways, that's almost a mandate.

Jim Sullivan,

The reason that you don't go all the way has several answers.

1.  This is in the Sand Hills of North Carolina and it gets very hot in the summer.
2.  This is a resort, not a private club, and it needs to attract golfers, vis a vis the quality of the product
3   Grass's need for water heightens as the blade is cut shorter.
4   Would you have the greens stimping at 6 in the summer ?

Before automated irrigation systems were the norm, greens and tees received the water they needed.

[jeffwarne]

Jon,

You lead in to something I've been pondering for a while....

With water usage on the planet increasingly an issue, with golf grasses needing limited mowing so as to establish good root bases and with many high handicappers struggling with real lean fairways I wonder whether VERY limited water and slightly higher cut short stuff is the answer?

Bingo.
firmer and slightly higher = way more fun
and normal players may actually be able to hit a full fairway wood off the ground on approaches and actually chip and pitch occasionally rather than putt/hybrid -putt everthing near the green.

Just because agronomy has outpaced ability doesn't mean we need to showcase it at every course,or as my good friend points out, the more money you pay for golf, the LESS grass you get to hit off of.

[Don Mahaffey]

I was at P2 last fall and the course was much greener, but still brown along the edges and firm.
I am very glad they didn't line the edges with those rows some here are suggesting. You simply can not transition to native unless you are willing to "go native" and that means keeping the water off of it, completely.
They make it work there, and few have the courage to take that route.

Remember, they have good soils for grass, receive ample rain, and grow a very drought tolerant turf grass.

[MClutterbuck]

I was at P2 last fall and the course was much greener, but still brown along the edges and firm.
I am very glad they didn't line the edges with those rows some here are suggesting. You simply can not transition to native unless you are willing to "go native" and that means keeping the water off of it, completely.
They make it work there, and few have the courage to take that route.

Remember, they have good soils for grass, receive ample rain, and grow a very drought tolerant turf grass.

I disagree. If you put in partial heads, and have the discipline to only water when there is no wind, you will end up watering a lot less and not have the overwatered middle. Also, the suggestion earlier in this thread about water running off to the native areas is not valid. If you water the right amount, in a sand based course, there will be no run off.

The answer to all this is discipline. Eliminating the computerized watering programs and the weather station, and having a superintendent make the decisions on site.

Science tells you that more heads deliver water more efficiently. You can not argue against that. If you have the resources, more heads is the answer, and the final result has to be same amount or less water, and less green in the middle.

All in all, I think the set up was fantastic.

[Don Mahaffey]

"Science tells you that more heads deliver water more efficiently"

That is 100% theory, an often repeated theory. But it depends on many factors, primarily being what you are trying to irrigate and what your desired outcomes is.

If your desired outcomes is head to head down the middle, and less water as you bleed out to the edges, and little to no water at all on the edges, then nothing is more efficient then what they did at P2. How can 2 heads be more efficient then 1 if you are getting your desired outcome with 1? And before anyone says you'll save water with more heads, remember that P2 cut their water use by 75%, and they didn't remove 75% of their turf.

Most in golf will disagree with me, but I also know most in golf would have disagreed with what was done at P2 before they did it. In fact it was stated at the USGA water summit in Dallas that they were setting back irrigation 40 years. If we agree that what they did works, then we have to acknowledge that just maybe some of these iron clad theories may not be so iron clad.

Yes, it takes discipline. discipline to properly schedule, but also discipline to not install more then you need in the first place.

[Brent Hutto]

There's obviously factors in play here that I know nothing about. But limiting sprinkler placement to only the middle of each fairway sounds a little like the guy who takes the lob wedge out of his bag because having it in there "forces" him to play flop shots that he doesn't have the skill to execute.

I can see how putting in additional heads that you intend to use very, very sparingly might not be worth the cost of installing and piping those heads. But I just can't see how simply having additional heads away from the centerline "force" anyone to use more water or to put water in places it is not needed.

Is there some political or business pressure on course superintendents so that every sprinkler head on the course must be used full-out, every day just because it's there?

[Jon Wiggett]

Whilst it is correct that the more heads the more even you can cover this does not mean it is more efficient. The second thing to take into consideration is that it is very difficult to abuse something you do not have so less is probably the most simple way to reduce water usage.

[Brent Hutto]

Whilst it is correct that the more heads the more even you can cover this does not mean it is more efficient. The second thing to take into consideration is that it is very difficult to abuse something you do not have so less is probably the most simple way to reduce water usage.

So are we really talking about the architect and whoever calls the shots for the renovation plan forcing the hand of future ownership and greenskeepers? Is the point to guarantee the purity of the lean-and-tapered look for the foreseeable future?

If you install an irrigation system that can be used with restraint or opened up to create a wall-to-wall overwatered typical USA golf course, at some point in the future someone will inevitably start turning up the volume. But if you put a single row down the centerline they'd have to either drag hoses out to the edges or add more piping.

By my reckoning the centerline system basically forecloses on future options to sell out the original plan a few years down the road.

[Don Mahaffey]

Brent,
Wall to wall irrigation hasn't reduced golf water use.
But i do agree that it is about discipline, as while design is very important, scheduling is really where water is saved.

It is not hard, or time consuming, for a course to develop a metric based on soil moisture to schedule irrigation.
With field capacity at the high end of the range, and maximum allowed depletion at the bottom, a course can easily develop an irrigation management plan that results is "proper" water use based on data, not hunches or opinions.

A google search will result in many articles and white papers on this subject. What is key is the understanding that modern soil moisture measuring techniques should be taking the place of ET based scheduling techniques as soil moisture measurements are exactly what the ET calculations are trying to measure.

[Adam Lawrence]

Whilst it is correct that the more heads the more even you can cover this does not mean it is more efficient. The second thing to take into consideration is that it is very difficult to abuse something you do not have so less is probably the most simple way to reduce water usage.

So are we really talking about the architect and whoever calls the shots for the renovation plan forcing the hand of future ownership and greenskeepers? Is the point to guarantee the purity of the lean-and-tapered look for the foreseeable future?

If you install an irrigation system that can be used with restraint or opened up to create a wall-to-wall overwatered typical USA golf course, at some point in the future someone will inevitably start turning up the volume. But if you put a single row down the centerline they'd have to either drag hoses out to the edges or add more piping.

By my reckoning the centerline system basically forecloses on future options to sell out the original plan a few years down the road.

It makes it _more difficult and expensive_ to sell out the original plan. Nothing to stop a future owner/manager putting in a more comprehensive irrigation system. Sounds daft I know, but I wouldn't put it past people...

[MClutterbuck]

This same ownership, with its great knowledge of the course, the game, and appropriate conditioning, had they had a more comprehensive irrigation system, meaning a modern system where you can switch on individual heads, would have resulted in a course with less green along the middle and slightly less brown in certain areas, without damaging the natives. The side heads would never be on if there were any wind. Also, there would never be runoff. It is a matter of restraint and discipline.

I belileve the final result would less waste of water in the middle, and using that in other areas, equal amount of water in the end. It would have resulted in a course equally good in terms of playability, and more appealing to those that did not like how it looked.

In the end, this would result in more courses copying the fast and firm approach, better courses and tremendous savings in water around the world. It would be an example more likely to be followed.

Again, i loved what C&C did, I have tremendous respect for Pinehurst ownership, but i would have asked C&C to put in extra heads. Even if used 4 times a year or drought times.

I just dont believe in taking out options to force restraint.

[Jon Wiggett]

This same ownership, with its great knowledge of the course, the game, and appropriate conditioning, had they had a more comprehensive irrigation system, meaning a modern system where you can switch on individual heads, would have resulted in a course with less green along the middle and slightly less brown in certain areas, without damaging the natives. The side heads would never be on if there were any wind. Also, there would never be runoff. It is a matter of restraint and discipline.


I belileve the final result would less waste of water in the middle, and using that in other areas, equal amount of water in the end. It would have resulted in a course equally good in terms of playability, and more appealing to those that did not like how it looked.

In the end, this would result in more courses copying the fast and firm approach, better courses and tremendous savings in water around the world. It would be an example more likely to be followed.

Again, i loved what C&C did, I have tremendous respect for Pinehurst ownership, but i would have asked C&C to put in extra heads. Even if used 4 times a year or drought times.

I just dont believe in taking out options to force restraint.

restraint and discipline. This is what is often lacking. Many start with the best of intentions but in the end these two attributes will fail to prevail.

playability, Which is what it should be about

more appealing to those that did not like how it looked. However, this point which is irrelevant from a golfing point of view often rears its ugly head leading to the abandonment of restraint and discipline.

In the end the substance of playability should always be before aesthetics.


Jon

[Dave McCollum]

As said in another thread, the golfers I know are a long way from accepting this look and these playing conditions.  Like PH our course is sand based.  Unlike PH it is in the high desert where there is virtually no rain for months in the summer.  Miss a day of water during July and you have a brown spot that takes three weeks to recover.  Personally, I think our course plays beautifully f&f and I loved the renovation done at PH and the set up for the Open.  But, trust me, we’d have a total revolt of paying customers if we didn’t keep the grass green.  We keep our course firmer than every course in the region and have lost a few members to the grass factories.  I can’t understand it because our course is superior in both design and conditioning.                   

I know golf is primarily about the folks we play with and that most golfers value the social experience far more than the venue that they play.  That means when a golfer leaves here for another course, they try to convince all their buddies to go too.  Ironically, some of our better players and core golfers have made this choice.  I call it a “farmer mentality” where the more verdant the crop, the better the farmer.  It makes little sense from a playability point of view, but it is very important to the bottom line.  Sad, but true. 

When I have to renovate my irrigation and course, I’m certain I will add as much control as I can afford.  In this climate (Idaho) nothing grows without water and water goes right through the sand.  You need a lot of water for grow-in.  We’re not as hot as Phoenix in the summer, but almost as dry.  I noticed this winter at both We-Ko-Pa and Desert Forest that when they were trying to re-establish native areas of desert, they we putting in sub surface irrigation to get the plants to grow.  Big world theory:  every course has it’s own unique challenges; one size doesn’t fit all.

[MClutterbuck]

restraint and discipline. This is what is often lacking. Many start with the best of intentions but in the end these two attributes will fail to prevail.

playability, Which is what it should be about

more appealing to those that did not like how it looked. However, this point which is irrelevant from a golfing point of view often rears its ugly head leading to the abandonment of restraint and discipline.

In the end the substance of playability should always be before aesthetics.


Jon

Jon, we agree in practically all, I just think we could have equal playability with slightly better aesthetics, which would cause more people to change towards the better.

[Joe Hancock]

restraint and discipline. This is what is often lacking. Many start with the best of intentions but in the end these two attributes will fail to prevail.

playability, Which is what it should be about

more appealing to those that did not like how it looked. However, this point which is irrelevant from a golfing point of view often rears its ugly head leading to the abandonment of restraint and discipline.

In the end the substance of playability should always be before aesthetics.


Jon

Jon, we agree in practically all, I just think we could have equal playability with slightly better aesthetics, which would cause more people to change towards the better.

No right or wrong here; "better" in this case is a preference. I tend to think our preferences are developed through conformity, at least the majority opinion is shaped that way. A few buck the trend, and think "better" isn't "better".

Joe

[Don Mahaffey]

This same ownership, with its great knowledge of the course, the game, and appropriate conditioning, had they had a more comprehensive irrigation system, meaning a modern system where you can switch on individual heads, would have resulted in a course with less green along the middle and slightly less brown in certain areas, without damaging the natives. The side heads would never be on if there were any wind. Also, there would never be runoff. It is a matter of restraint and discipline.

I belileve the final result would less waste of water in the middle, and using that in other areas, equal amount of water in the end. It would have resulted in a course equally good in terms of playability, and more appealing to those that did not like how it looked.

In the end, this would result in more courses copying the fast and firm approach, better courses and tremendous savings in water around the world. It would be an example more likely to be followed.

Again, i loved what C&C did, I have tremendous respect for Pinehurst ownership, but i would have asked C&C to put in extra heads. Even if used 4 times a year or drought times.

I just dont believe in taking out options to force restraint.

This is a healthy debate and I understand your point.
But, to me, it is that drive for an "even" color that results in more irrigation and more water use, and it is also used as ammunition to say, more heads is more efficient, which really means more heads is more efficient if you want an even color across the entire golf course. But where does that color end?

If you go even color across the board, you have to have an edge, a place where you stop irrigating, and the course stands out, rather than within the native. If a course is going to transition into native ground, where should that transition start? Or should it just be nice even colored turf, edge, native. And if you add all those part circles along the edge, the edge is forever pinned in place.

At P2 it looked like the best lies were down the middle, got a little more sketchy as you got closer to the edge, and then somewhat inconsistent as you got off the turf. The bleed out started from the middle, and it got dryer and firmer as you worked your way to the outer edges of the hole corridor. I thought it was absolute genius to maintain a course like that. I understand not all will agree, but as soon as the goal becomes a consistent look through the green, it's all lost, IMO.