Green's irrigation.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

Does it ever become cost effective to just hand water greens/surrounds or is that always a luxury?

I just read an article that said Muirfield Village never waters greens with overhead unless it's a flush or watering in a product app.  So that means hoses and QCs pretty much every day.  Then again, the super there is about as aggro as you can get. 

Here in the High Rockies we tend to hit greens with overhead every other day, with spot watering both days.  Usually we have two guys go out every day to change hole locations and scout out dry areas in the greens/apps/surrounds with a soil probe and a hose.  We are fairly high end though, it would be very difficult for a small staff to even do every other day that way.

[Tom_Doak]

Do you think courses that don't use ins/outs will eventually need to add heads or make changes? Do you know any good courses that don't use ins/outs?

Don:

I do not remember for sure, but I believe that Old Macdonald does not have in/out heads around the greens.  We certainly discussed it at length.

The reason it's possible there is that the turf is the same all the way around the greens as on the greens, and there is enough turf around the greens that you basically just have head-to-head coverage everywhere, on the greens and around them.  Also, the greens and the surrounds are the same (native) sand.

If the turf type and soil type is the same around the greens, I don't know why you'd need different sprinklers, but I'm no expert.  I just hate trying to play shots over all those sprinkler heads around the greens, so the fewer there are, the better to me.

[Grant Saunders]

I currently managed back to back or in and out heads. I am not a huge fan of the setup and if deciding to install back to back heads I would opt for one full circle and the second one adjustable arc set to throw on either just greens or surrounds dependent on which needs the additional water.

I do like the Rainbird 751 heads that offer the ability to set an adjusted arc but then a simple click with a screwdriver they operate full circle instead. Simply use the screwdriver to click it back again and the head returns to the arc you set earlier. This seems like a good option for times when you may wish to only irrigate the set arc such as washing in a product on the greens only but only requires one head and decoder station.

[Randy Thompson]

Do you think courses that don't use ins/outs will eventually need to add heads or make changes? Do you know any good courses that don't use ins/outs?

Don:

I do not remember for sure, but I believe that Old Macdonald does not have in/out heads around the greens.  We certainly discussed it at length.

The reason it's possible there is that the turf is the same all the way around the greens as on the greens, and there is enough turf around the greens that you basically just have head-to-head coverage everywhere, on the greens and around them.  Also, the greens and the surrounds are the same (native) sand.

If the turf type and soil type is the same around the greens, I don't know why you'd need different sprinklers, but I'm no expert.  I just hate trying to play shots over all those sprinkler heads around the greens, so the fewer there are, the better to me.

If the turf type and soil type is the same around the greens, I don't know why you'd need different sprinklers, but I'm no expert.  I just hate trying to play shots over all those sprinkler heads around the greens, so the fewer there are, the better to me.
Tom,
Shouldn´t be much difference but with the higher height of cut you should have deeper roots and therefore the frequency in between watering could be different.

[Mike_Young]

I currently managed back to back or in and out heads. I am not a huge fan of the setup and if deciding to install back to back heads I would opt for one full circle and the second one adjustable arc set to throw on either just greens or surrounds dependent on which needs the additional water.

I do like the Rainbird 751 heads that offer the ability to set an adjusted arc but then a simple click with a screwdriver they operate full circle instead. Simply use the screwdriver to click it back again and the head returns to the arc you set earlier. This seems like a good option for times when you may wish to only irrigate the set arc such as washing in a product on the greens only but only requires one head and decoder station.

Yep...great head for a small operation...or even the bigger ones...

[Ken Moum]

Don, and all the other supers who've weighed in on these threads, THANK YOU.

Even after almost 10 years as a GCSAA staffer, and being a golf course maintenance geek for 30 years before that, you guys have added a ton of ideas and information.

The idea that a place like #2 could use the brown fairway edge as a transition area to ensure that there wouldn't a few feet of lush, unplayable vegetation between the fairway and rough is the kind of thinking that we don't see often enough.

I used to play a muni in Pierre, SD that had a single row of QC couplers down the middle of the fairway.  It looked a lot like #2, except that our rough consisted of prairie weeds that made the "stuff" at Pinehurst look like child's play.

It was mostly kochia http://www.malag.aes.oregonstate.edu/wildflowers/images/04_WeedOntarioSept_13.JPG.w620.jpg

Then, the city got a recreation grant that allowed them to put in a double row system and we all thought it was going to be great. Well, what we got was 22- to 28-yard fairways with 3-5 yards of lush, thick bluegrass rough between the fairway and the thin stuff.

I am equally glad to see your opinions on the pros and cons of in/out greenside heads.  Again, when I first heard about them I thought, "great idea."  But like Tom D. I hate having to play around all those heads, especially since most places that have them also have drains scattered everywhere around the greens.

Again, thank you all.

Ken

[Anthony_Nysse]

Does it ever become cost effective to just hand water greens/surrounds or is that always a luxury?

I just read an article that said Muirfield Village never waters greens with overhead unless it's a flush or watering in a product app.  So that means hoses and QCs pretty much every day.  Then again, the super there is about as aggro as you can get.  

We do the same here. Granted, June-September, we hardly have to water anything, unless it's a product. November to April, it's greens checkers only. Same program at Colonial. It's the best way to not overwater, hold off disease and drive roots. Paul is one of the best water managers you will find.

We do have small, pop up Toro 810 irrigation heads that water just tee tops and our approaches. They were installed with both surfaces used to be tifeagle, but they are now celebration. We still utilize when needed, keeping water out of bunkers.

[Bradley Anderson]

It has been stated by many in the know that Pinehurst #2 made a mistake with their irrigation changes. I strongly disagree with that premise, but many contributors here have stated that turf conditions will decline over time. Again, I think they have zero basis for such an assumption.
At Pinehurst, they have ins/outs around the greens which mean they can irrigate the greens and surrounds independently.  This has become common.  Should all courses have this feature? Do all great courses have this feature?

Don,

I personally like the look that center row irrigation gives #2 but I would have argued for leaving the outer rows is place if for no other reasons than keeping the "native" vegetation growing during dry weather, and for keeping the Bermuda from going completely dormant.

If they had watered the wire grass it might have been a true test of golf. It looked to me like it was not much of a challenge to hit from in a wilted state.

I'm not sure how I would mow fairways where part of it is green and actively growing and then the mower has to traverse the dormant part to manage the green part. I would think that there will be some problems with that and possibly even some very dull mowers.

Outer sprinklers actually save on water. The fringes on the outer edges of the greens use much more water because they have substantially more leaf surface. So you either do a lot of hand watering or over watering of the inner portions of the greens to maintain the life on the edges. At my course I am shaving down a lot of grass around the banks of the greens and it is so much more fun and interesting to play. These areas need water at times when the putting surfaces don't need water.

[Reed Kemp]

I've always thought in/out heads are an advantage on courses (such as Pinehurst) that have bentgrass greens and warm season grass surrounds; this allows actively growing greens to be irrigated as needed in spring/fall without saturating surrounds that are still dormant. 

[Anthony_Nysse]

I've always thought in/out heads are an advantage on courses (such as Pinehurst) that have bentgrass greens and warm season grass surrounds; this allows actively growing greens to be irrigated as needed in spring/fall without saturating surrounds that are still dormant. 

More or less gives Superintendnets the ability to water the surrounding turf without watering the greens themselves.