You may have seen your grounds crew busy down on #16 fairway and the cut through between #14 and 16 making repairs to the sub surface water drainage system found there. This system was first installed in the late sixties, early seventies to drop the water table in those fairways in an effort to keep them playable.
With the heavy rains that pounded the course this past summer those areas often stood wet and did not drain for long periods of time. To find some answers, we hired a hydro-blasting firm to inspect the drain lines between the eleventh and fourteenth fairways.
I suspected tree roots overtime had grown into and plugged drain lines, what I didn't expect to find was the irrigation main installed in 1994 cut the drain line compromising its ability to function. I was always led to believe this drain line was several feet under ground.
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| Note the flow of water pouring from the pipe on left. |
The irrigation contractor poured washed stone around the pipe to allow some drainage but in wet years this make shift repair wasn't enough.
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| Removing the old tree root plugged drain tile. |
I've included several photo's to give you an idea of the scope of some of the work. Because I was on the "idiots end" of a shovel, in a wet hole that isn't kind to electronic gear, I didn't get all the photo's needed to complete this essay.
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| "Clogged arteries!" |
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| New tile buried under a bed of washed stone. What you didn't get to see was the small river flowing downstream before the drain tile and gravel was added. |
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| Water "free flowing" as a result of our repair. |
Heavy rainfall recorded on Monday September 26th will be the first test of our repair. I'm confident I will not be greeted by a lake in that cut through area. This system has served the club well over time and requires more maintenance. Now that we have repaired the severed line it is our intent to scope the rest of the system to see if we can identify more problems that we can fix to keep her running freely. _Mk
