Late fall and winter are great times to make improvements to
the courses that will have a big impact on members enjoyment of the facility
for the next season. This week we began
our first of four new quick-coupler installations around greens on the West
course. “Quick-couplers” or “QC’s” are
hand operated valves that allow our staff to connect a hose to the irrigation
system quickly and water select areas like greens.
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| Trenching lines for new pipe |
New QC installations are often very easy to do and can be
done by one person even during the growing season, but the West course is a
little different.
The current irrigation
on the West course is referred to as a “block system”. In the block system, many of the irrigation
pipes that are pressurized with water all the time are located in the rough,
far from the greens, tees, and fairways.
Branching off of the pressurized pipe is a herringbone of smaller pipes
that have irrigation heads connected to them.
The only thing stopping the irrigation heads from running all the time
is one electronic valve between the pressurized pipe and the heads. So if you want to turn on one head, you may
actually have to turn on three or four at the same time depending on how it’s
set up. So, for example, if there is an
area in a fairway where a QC is needed, we can’t just connect into the pipe in
the fairway. If we did, the only time
water would be available at the QC would be when the valve is open and the
irrigation heads are running. With that
said, new irrigation lines have to be put in the ground starting at the
pressurized lines by themselves. A big process to do, but
one that our staff is tackling well.
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| The pipe is together and ready to be put in |
When it comes to watering greens properly, hand watering is
often used so the greens don’t receive too much or too little irrigation
water. Greens with too much or too
little water have big problems both with health of the turf and playability for
the golfer. Having QC’s closer to greens
allows our staff to move around the course swiftly and with less disruption to
play during the day while also doing what’s best for the turfgrass by syringing or watering.
These installations are being done in-house at very little
cost. Yesterday we completed the
installation of the new pipe by #1 West green and are on track to have our
second run of pipe competed this afternoon by #7 West green. I’m very proud of the hard work our staff is
putting in to complete these great updates.
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| Laying the sod back down right behind it for less disruption |
