11 Green left surround turf/drainage improvement

With the removal of the Oak tree to the left of 11 green, additional work was needed to improve the playability of the left side surround and to help drainage issues. There was a mixture of dirt, poa, bermuda, rye grass, bluegrass and fescue for a person skilled enough to hit it that far which made for some interesting chipping across the green. There were also drainage issues caused by water above the green and in front of #4 tee running down onto the green. The water that came across the front half of the green would move off of the green because there is just enough slope to assist the water in moving off of the green. Water that would run onto the green toward the back half of the green would be trapped by a low spot that has developed in that section of the green. It would also go across the complete back half of the green and slowly move into the sub-surface of the green and slowly work its way out the front of the green. As most everyone knows from playing this green, it is flat for the most part as is the subsurface so moisture would be retained in the green for long periods of time.

Our Master Plan architect, Spencer Holt was in town in January to meet with me regarding a couple of planned projects. I mentioned to him that we had some pretty serious water issues with this green and that we needed to improve the area. We shot some grades with the transit and he worked up a diagram below with the removal of the tree on #11. I just wanted to show you an illustration of the type of support documents that we can do our work.














I'm missing a couple of pictures but will fill you in on what I missed. The soil/sod mix was stripped away with a walking sod cutter. The area is about 45' x 100'. The material was pushed into a pile by a tractor and blade and then loaded up into our dump truck and hauled to our dumping area.

Skip and Russ After sod stripped away and backhoe was used to make our drainage catch area in the back left corner. The staff have already laid some of the sod in the background toward the front of the surround. Excess dirt was hauled to various spots where we needed some soil. # 3 and #12 rough area where we had some ruts. The curbing at #6. The right front entrance where grass will not grow and we will be placing a small hosta border in place of bare ground and some was hauled back to our storage area for future use.














Different view of the same area. Digging out some smaller drains that were located in the back corner.














Skip is trenching and Russ is checking depth to insure that the pipe will drain. We had a transit set up in the background to the left of the tree which set the original depth.














Russ is using a saw to cut through the asphalt so the trencher can continue it's work. A dirty job but someone has to do it.














Old clay tile that we cut through in our trenching operation. We are assuming some of this material was from some type of greens drainage. In the catch basin area, we used perforated pipe(pipe with holes in it) and pea gravel to allow water that is underground to move into this area and be drained away. We laid a couple of inches of pea gravel on the floor of the trench so soil does not move into the pipe.














Old galvanized irrigation pipe that we had to work our way around as well. We actually hit this in two spots.














The 6" drain pipe lying in the trench. We placed a couple of screws on each side of the coupling and wrapped duct tape around it to insure it does not pull apart.














This is the catch basin area with the 12" drain. The pea gravel was placed within the top inch or two and we then placed some sand over this material to the top of the trench which will help our sod hold some moisture and will stay alive.














The finished product from the left front approach area.














From the right front corner. In working with out architect, we wanted to make sure the catch basin area was deep enough to catch the water coming into that area but soft enough to not change the overall view of the green area as you were playing the hole.














The back left corner of the complex looking out toward the front. You can see the catch basin in the foreground.














The view below is from #4 cart path looking toward #11 green. This is the direction that the water will flow from down into the #11 complex.














In playing in the Opening Day event today, the green at #11 had sun on the complete green at 9:45 a.m. this morning. Below is the view from last August when I did some timed photography to determine the amount of shade that was covering the greens during the day.