When I moved to Arizona from Oregon I noticed that there was a shift from trying to remove water from the course to managing the water applied to the course. In Oregon we had elaborate drainage systems for every low area and could never add enough drainage each winter. Once I arrived to Arizona I had to be analytical about the central control and how the water was applied to the course. Having little rain all year the importance resides on the irrigation system. When I finally came to the mountains in Payson to manage The Rim Golf Club I feel much more comfortable with the property since it is the closest to an Oregon climate. The irrigation
systems is still #1 priority, but we also must get water off the course from the monsoon season.
The Drainage we installed on #9 fairway is directly related to the damage we received last year from the standing water. We sodded these areas last year soon after we had the problems. Now with the down time of the cooler weather we were able to install some drainage in the previously sodded areas.
I have posted some pictures to show our process. We first painted out the areas that we needed to trench. Then we took a sod cutter and stripped away the sod for later replacement. The trencher dug an 18-20 inch deep trench 51/2 inches wide. We cleaned all the DG out and away from the trench and backfilled the trench with pea gravel 2". We then layed a 4" perforated pipe in the trench and backfilled with pea gravel, making a gravel envelope aroung the pipe about two inches above the pipe. Then we layed out the bunker liner material in the trench to ensure drainage without contamination from the above sand. The we leveled the trench with our old fairway plugs from last year that we composted. I feel that we may have made a mistake back filling with the plugs because it was all basically thatch. When we were trying to pack the plugs down we watered them and it was like a sponge. I will keep everyone posted on this outcome since we may need to redo these after a short while. After leveling the trench we put the sod back and cleaned the area.
The things that I have learned from this process was that drainage is still a simple process. Coming from Oregon I know that we never really over did the process. Drainage is not rocket science and overthinking the process can become detrimental. Since moving water from point A to point B with a grade of around 1% or more is half the battle. The second part is how you backfill the trench. We have all read the books from Beard on The Best Management Practices and the book may be a 500 page book but it is full of common sense. Keeping things simple is key to labor savings and functionality. I am hoping when the monsoons come the drainage will do its job but until then I will remain skeptical.
