Our drainage project on the 5th fairway is solved and finished up. The warmer temperatures are nice for us to get out on the golf course. However, due to the melting snow and 1" of rain we received 2 days ago, it is still too wet for any kind of heavy equipment.
When solving drainage problem, it is necessary to identify whether the problem is caused by:
1. Surface Water
2. Ground Water
Surface water is easy to collect. Using long channel basins like the one in the first picture, we can collect channels of water before they settle in the low areas. Eliminating the runoff water is critical to drying up a fairway. Of course, the best time to find out where surface water is coming from is to grab an umbrella and walk the golf course during a storm! Surface water that goes uncollected, will settle in the low areas, compounding playability issues.
Ground water can only be captured using internal or subsurface drainage. Example of holes that give us a challenge with ground water are #6 and #11. On #6, we installed a submersible pump (in 2008) about 8 feet beneath the surface. The goal is to lower the water table under the fairway in conjunction with a network of internal drainage. If you think about the water level of Lake Sequoya , this gives you an indication of just how close the ground water is to the surface of the fairway.
With the rain and snow combined with 2 days of temperatures just shy of 60*, I can see a slight tint of green coming back in our fairways. The Kentucky Bluegrass roughs require much warmer temperatures (70s and 80s) to really start growing. Rainfall and snowfall both contain atmospheric nitrogen. This why you will see a green up after a rain event. Some say the amount of nitrogen is equal to applying 1/10 lb of Nitrogen per 1,000ft2 for every 1 inch of rainfall.
A couple crew members are out raking up stump grinding chips from trees that were removed this winter. We have starting gearing our maintenance practices towards clean up.