Irrigation Woes

This beautiful water feature is not what we want to see. The irrigation blow-out pictured is on #15 red tee. It was caused from a valve on an inch and a half pipe attached to a three inch main line that broke off due to intense water hammer created when the pump turned on to water the night before.

 One of the first things GMS did when we came to Capital City CC was to asses the irrigation pump system. We found that the computer system that controls the pumps needed to be tweaked to help eliminate water hammer but we found that because of the design of the system we could only reduce in marginally. Water moving through pipes is a very powerful force when the volumes are as high as 1250 to 1350 gallons per minute.

Our irrigation system is continuously under a pressure of 85 psi.. When the sprinkler control system turns on a station, usually 3 to 16 sprinklers, the pressure is reduced in the pipes. There is a lot of pipes under the ground so it takes a while for the pump station located behind the swimming pool to sense this pressure loss and when it does the pump turns on. The source of our water is a very deep well. When the pump turns on the time it takes for the pump to bring the water up through the well and into the pipes is less then a minute but the pressure in the pipes is reduced down to, in most cases around 20 to 30 psi. The computer that controls the speed of the pump knows this and is working hard to catch up the loss of psi back to 85. Once the water reaches the pipes the gallons per minute is near 1100.

Water hammer is essentially a recoil of the energy water moving through the pipes creates and eventually hitting the end of the line. That energy has to go somewhere and what you see in the photo is where it went Wednesday night. The valve at 15 tee was the weak point this time. Unfortunately every time the pump turns on the same water hammer situation occurs. Most nights there is no blow-out, the energy is absorbed by the pipes but every water hammer event weakens the pipes. This has been going on for many, many years and the pipes are fatigued. This is a situation that puts the golf course at risk for major damage not only from damage that the blow-out could cause, but also the loss of grass because the entire system has to be shut down for repair. In the heat of the summer the greens are in big trouble if the system is shut down for four days or more.    

SHOCKING literally

Lightning flashes and everybody ducks their heads. If it's followed by an immediate BOOM, outa here! adios amigos! Golf courses are notorious for lightning strikes but in my 20+ years of working on a golf course I have never seen a tree literally EXPLODE!

  That used to be a Cherry tree. Now it's BBQ wood. The stacked wood that looks like split rail fence next to the golf cart was picked up from the rough and fairway of #4. I am saving this wood for cooking. If anyone wants some, let me know. I'm sure it will make some electrifying ribs.

"Punching the Greens"

Ask any golfer what "punching the greens" are and most of the time the response will be something along the lines of "It's when the maintenance staff goes out and messes up the greens and then throws sand all over them!"

Well, I can sympathize with the frustration that "punching the greens" or aerification, as turf professionals call it, create for golfers. After all I am a golfer as well and love smooth rolling greens as much as you do. But it is because of aerification that we have healthy smooth greens. Most of the turf problems we have been fixing on greens this summer are in one way or another related to either improper or infrequent aerification. On average the typical golf course in this part of the country will core aerify greens twice per year. Twice is usually sufficient to remove and exchange old soil that has become contaminated with thatch and organic material. Since the end of April when I got here at Capital City we have aerified the greens six times in an effort to fix the soil! Anyone reading this that may not have played at Capital City Country Club this summer might think "Wow the greens must be in terrible shape with all that "punching" going on." However as most that have played here know, just the opposite is true. As we replace the old soil with new, the greens become more healthy and as they become more healthy, they recover faster.

In the photo are the four different aerification tines we have used this year at Capital City Country Club. Starting from the right is a solid tine or sometimes called a needle tine. This tine was used in the winter and early spring months when the grass was dormant or just coming out of dormancy. The purpose of this tine is to open the top tier of the soil profile to allow for the exchange of gases and allow the soil to warm-up so the grass will begin to grow. This tine is used when the grass is not growing fast enough to repair damage to the surface caused by tines that remove a core.

As the grass begins to grow we switch to the tine to the left of the needle tine. This tine is a 1/4" side eject coring tine. This tine like the other two larger tines shown removes a column of soil. This is when we really start to improve the greens. The next tine in line is a 1/2" coring tine and the largest and the tine we just aerified with August 11th and 12th is a 5/8" coring tine.

My hope is that when members are enjoying much improved and healthy putting surfaces and it's time to "punch the greens" again, and someone asks what's that, the response will be "Oh, that's when they remove old soil. But in a week or so the greens will be better than they are now."  

Updated View

Following picture is a view of number 7 fairway and bunker complex around the green.

Greens Plugging

Several weeks ago we began taking healthy plugs from the back of number 10 green.  These plugs replaced weak areas on greens 1, 9, and other select areas that historically had poor turf quality.