Since Hurricane Helene dumped 20 plus inches of water on the golf course two weeks ago, the bottom of #6 fairway was very wet. We left it for a few days because after that much rain, springs can surface but occasionally dry up on their own. After accessing the situation yesterday morning, it was clear this wasn't stopping on its own anytime soon. We knew it wasn't an irrigation leak because the pumpstation pressure had equalized and the pumps haven't run in days. Still, we could see water bubbling to the surface.
After digging the up the location where water was coming out of the ground, we found out the water was coming out of an old irrigation line! When the new system was installed, the old irrigation system remained in the ground; obviously the old sprinkler heads are removed. Since a new system is routed in its own unique way, it would be way too costly to remove all the pipes from the old system. In fact, below the ground at Highlands CC, are 3 irrigation systems! The old swing joints where the sprinkler heads were removed, are then filled with either spray foam or concrete so ground water can't get into the old pipes or if there was a little bit of water in the old pipes, it stays trapped and can't come to the surface like this one did.
Apparently, somewhere farther up the hill, ground water is able to get into this 4" line. The entire 4" pipe filled with water, creating enough pressure to push the concrete that was put it the old swing joint, when the old system was abandoned. Since we'll never really know where the point is that water is getting in the pipe, we don't want to seal this hole off, otherwise the same thing will happen again in the future. Therefore, we are running a 4" drain pipe to this location, collecting the water and directing it into an existing basin inlet a few yards away in the fairway. After getting the water running in a channel (bottom photo), the entire area began to dry up. This was an interesting issue and one that is new to me.
