Repairing Wet Areas On the Course

Our old golf course develops a number of wet areas in the spring and they slowly begin to dry as rain dissipates during the summer. Sometimes a wet area pops up and it is not a spring but one of the many 4" clay drain lines that cross the course from area to area.

We've had a wet area develop on #7 down in the valley and Skip and Russ did some investigating on Monday. They dug up the area and found out a clay line that carried water from the area of #5 on the course down across #7 was clogged.  It was full of mud and water was leaking out from the joints in the pipe and was coming out at the bottom of the hill. The guys dug up the area and found an old metal water line underneath it which we don't want disturb. Skips experience over the years are that we are not sure if all these old water lines on the course are not possibly still live. We also found another clay tile accidentally when digging along the first clay line. The guys cracked the 2nd clay line which worked in the end of us. The crack in the pipe allowed water from the first line to flow into it showing us that we had a good flowing drain pipe.

Years ago a black drain tile was placed in the swale to remove water from this area. We had originally planned on connecting the clay line running down from 7 cart path to the black line but the finding of the perpendicular clay line changed those plans. With the black drain line exposed we decided to place a new surface drain in this area which will help remove surface water underground quicker and more efficiently. The quicker water gets into the drainage system, the less damage it can do and the drier the turf areas can become.

Major leak coming from old 4" drain tile. This pipe was coming from the cart path on 7.

Water draining out of pipe after clog/dirt was removed from pipe.  A steady stream of water.

The right side of the hole is the black drainage pipe that is laid in the swale of 7. Next to the shovel is another clay tile we found which rand along the black pipe. The hole in the pipe is allowing water to evacuate. We connected the two clay tiles.

After back filling the area. In the foreground is a new surface drain that will  help remove surface water during rainfall. This view is looking toward 7 green. The sod in  this area will need to be replaced.

This is the view looking up toward 7 cart path and the back of 5 tee.  This area was wet on a regular basis because of the clay tile being full of dirt and probably water weeping from the hillside during the wet times.

We've been looking at a couple of wet areas on #3 that travels down from the cart path on #12(spring). We also had a wet spot or two pop up in the fairway but we believe these are all related to the spring. This situation will be corrected using a sump up in the rough above the 2 irrigation control boxes. We will run drain lines to the sump and it will then feed down along the rough of #3 to the lowest area where there is a drain line running through which will evacuate the water. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of water coming out of the hill into the fairway.

Wet area near the cart path on 12 but on the 3 side of the hole. We plan to place a sump in the aera of the first arrow and a drain line will then be trenched toward the 2nd arrow and down to the lowest point on 3 and connect to the existing drain line.

Beginning of the sump dig.  Look at the water filling the hole.

This area is out in the left middle of 3 fairway down from the irrigation boxes. We have shutoff irrigation water to this fairway hoping the spot would dry up but it has not so we eliminated that potential problem. We believe water is going back under the surface and has found another weak point moving back to the surface in the fairway. Our sump drain when completed should help to dry this area if our hunch is correct.