Whether a golf course is located in an area under drought conditions or in a region where rain is plentiful, irrigation practices are a vital component of water management.
When Pat Smyth, Golf Course Superintendent at Saddle Creek Resort Golf Club in Copperopolis, Calif., realized two years ago that he would have to cut raw water usage by 35%, his initial reaction was one of shock and fear. “I thought we weren’t going to be able to keep the course alive,” he says.
Summing It Up • An effective water-mitigation plan will not sacrifice golf course conditioning or playability. • Proper nozzling is one of the best ways for golf courses to improve water usage and efficiency. • Maintenance crews should not only monitor the golf course to prevent areas from becoming too dry. It is just as important to make sure the turf does not become too wet. |
Smyth spent hours trying to decide what to do—brainstorming with General Manager Rick Morgan and his management company personnel, going to meetings, consulting vendors, conducting research, and bouncing ideas back and forth with anyone he could.
“We knew we would be hit hard with water restrictions, so we prepared the staff and membership,” Smyth says. “We tried to turn a negative into a positive.”
Once the property devised a water mitigation program in response to the mandates imposed by the Calaveras County Water District and State Water Resources Control Board, Smyth’s shock had turned into awe about four weeks into its implementation.
“The areas we were watering were alive and thriving, so I started getting more sleep at night,” he recalls.
Measured Response
Further up the West Coast, conditions warrant a slightly different approach to water usage at Tacoma Country & Golf Club in Lakewood, Wash.
“Water is abundant here. It’s free,” says Golf Course Superintendent Joel Kachmarek. “It’s all about golf [course] playability and firm, uniform conditions.”
Because of the amount of rain its property receives most of the year, Tacoma C&GC only irrigates in June, July, and August. “It won’t rain at all in the summer, so irrigation is just as important here as in other parts of the country,” Kachmarek reports.
Nevertheless, in the last couple of years, the property got new satellites, controllers and software for its aging irrigation system, and replaced its nozzles to improve water inputs.
“We’re always trying to save water. We have done everything we can. We have all of the latest and greatest nozzling and software,” notes Kachmarek. “Nozzles are one of the main ways to improve your efficiency.”
Results-Oriented Tactics
Saddle Creek Resort modified its golf course agronomic practices by shutting off 450 irrigation heads, limiting 350 sprinklers to 180-degree turns, and substituting wetting agents for water whenever possible. In 2013, the property was irrigating more than 90 acres of turf, but in 2014 Saddle Creek was irrigating 40 fewer acres of rough. The resort also converted 15 to 20 acres in out-of-play areas on the golf course into unmaintained native fescue, which the grounds crew does not mow or irrigate.
Changing Hearts and MindsWhen Saddle Creek Resort Golf Club launched its water-mitigation program after severe drought conditions in California had led to mandated restrictions, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome, says Golf Course Superintendent Pat Smyth, was changing the mindset of not only the club’s maintenance staff, but also of its golfers. While most of the staff training applied to other managers and employees who deal with the membership on a daily basis, Smyth had to convince his crew of the merits of the new plan as well. Maintenance staff members were told to direct questions from golfers to Smyth, General Manager Rick Morgan, or Golf Pro Tyler Brown, to prevent the spread of unfounded rumors or miscommunications. Smyth has made sure the crew members understand what does and doesn’t need water on the golf course and throughout the property. However, he says, it didn’t take long for the maintenance staff to embrace the new measures. “Once they saw the changes and the look, they believed in it and fell in love with it,” he adds. The Saddle Creek management staff also had to help the club’s members understand the property’s Communication was key, he continues, and he sent a lot of e-mails to management and the membership. In addition, Smyth reports, it was important for Copperopolis, the small Northern California community of 2,000 where Saddle Creek is located, to understand how the club was responding to the drought conditions. Because “not everyone in the world is a golfer,” he notes, the property needed to show Copperopolis residents that it was serious about water conservation. |
Smyth says he has been pleased with the results of the new practices. After all, the property has saved nearly 70 million gallons of water. In addition, the maintenance staff has saved more than 10% on water, fuel, fertilizer and other costs.
The property was able to shut off more than 450 irrigation heads because all of the fairways were lined with part-circle heads. To determine which heads to shut off, “We started from the outside and worked our way in,” Smyth explains.
In another effort to conserve water, a vendor helped Smyth research low-flow sprinklers, and the Saddle Creek maintenance staff built 20 low-flow sprinkler sites, in-house, for which the water flow is less than one gallon per minute.
“It wasn’t hard once we did the first one,” Smyth reports.
Level-Headed Approach
Before Tacoma C&GC replaced its factory nozzles with stainless-steel, full-coverage irrigation nozzles, the golf course got plenty of water close to the heads. Five feet away, however, a ring of dry turf would appear. “The golf course was too wet around the heads, and balls would plug,” says Kachmarek. Now, however, the pattern around the heads is more uniform.
That’s a good thing, because the driving force behind the conversion to the new nozzles was the desire to create uniform conditions. “We wanted to get rid of the wetness around the heads. The ground was soft there,” Kachmarek says.
The new nozzles don’t have small openings, which can get clogged by sand or other particles in the irrigation water, he adds, and clogged nozzles can leave a dry ring around a sprinkler head.
With the previous system, which was about 25 years old, the maintenance staff had to replace parts every year. “When a part would go bad, everything around it would die,” Kachmarek explains. With the nozzles operating at the correct pressure, he says, the water distribution translates into better playability and consistency.
Allowing the property to make its own map with a photo of the golf course, the upgraded software has been beneficial as well. Kachmarek has plotted the course’s 1,200 sprinkler heads on the map, which makes it easier and quicker for him to make adjustments. Now Kachmarek and his assistant no longer have to refer to crude hand drawings of each hole to find the address for each sprinkler. And with the new software, the system can be operated using a smartphone.
Each of the heads on the Tacoma course has its own “percent adjust,” based on the water needs in its area. Depending on the moisture levels, the staff can now sometimes wait until the afternoon or the following day to water. “It’s easy to just run water in the dog days of summer when it’s hot,”Kachmarek notes. “You can get in a rut without paying attention to the areas that get too much water.”
Savvy Supplements
Golf course superintendents also supplement their irrigation tactics with other water-management tools such as hand-watering, planting native areas, and using wetting agents and moisture meters. At Saddle Creek, for example, the grounds crew uses a surfactant that the crew members spray and water into the turf every 30 days during the summer. “It gets into the root zone and holds onto the water. It acts like a sponge,” Smyth says.
Another vendor helped Smyth research wetting agents. “Everything works differently with different types of soil,” he explains. “The wetting agents have been a huge help.”
The Saddle Creek maintenance staff also uses mobile water-moisture meters, inserting the three-inch probes into the turf to determine the moisture percentage in the ground.
The Tacoma C&GC maintenance staff, which also uses moisture probes on the greens, tries to keep the moisture level at 20%. The crew members probe the ground to look for areas that are too wet, as well as too dry.
“Don’t just look for dry areas,” advises Kachmarek. “Just because it’s green and firm, it still could be too wet. There’s always room to dial back. It could make a difference in the way the course plays.”
At Tacoma C&GC, which gets its water from a lake, the grounds crew also hand-waters to supplement its watering inputs and keep water usage down. The course has a tight layout, Kachmarek notes, but several years ago the property added some native areas that its grounds crew does not have to mow or fertilize.
While environmental stewardship and water conservation are important components of the golf course maintenance business, the primary philosophy behind watering practices at Tacoma C&GC is playability. And Kachmarek likes to manage his golf course the way he prefers to play it—fast.
“Golf should be played on firm-and-fast conditions whenever possible,” he believes. “We can turn the sprinklers down and let some areas be brown. While some golfers may not like brown spots, they like wet spots even less.”
Keeping Up Appearances
The water-mitigation program at Saddle Creek has not sacrificed course conditioning, but the look of the place has changed dramatically. “It made all of our rough look dormant, so it really made the tees, fairways, and greens pop,” says Smyth. And while the dormant turf is on hillsides that slope into the fairways, the changes have affected the playability of the golf course as well. “It made the course fast and firm,” Smyth reports. “A lot of the members like the extra roll they’re getting. They get 10 or 20 more yards.”
In fact, the membership’s response to the changes has been a highlight of Saddle Creek’s water mitigation program.
“The members liked it so much that they asked to keep the look year-round,” says Smyth.
While both properties have had great success with the changes they have made already, Saddle Creek Resort and Tacoma C&GC are still looking to make improvements. By 2017, the Saddle Creek staff hopes to convert its golf course to a turf variety that can go dormant. Smyth says his management company, Golf Maintenance Solutions, is helping him research turf varieties, and they are looking into warm-season grasses like Bermuda or zoysia.
With irrigation pipes and wiring that were installed in 1990, according to Kachmarek, Tacoma C&GC has more plans to upgrade its entire irrigation system. In 2022, the club is scheduled to get a new system, which will have individual sprinkler heads with better spacing between them. Heads are currently spaced 70 feet apart, but the new system will reduce spacing to 65 feet. “We have individual head control on the greens and tees now, but the new system will give us better control in the fairways,” Kachmarek says.
With its environmental stewardship and sustainable practices, the Saddle Creek staff hopes to serve as a model for other golf courses. “[Our experience] has opened my eyes to how much water we can save and still provide a good golf course,” says Smyth. “You’ve got to believe and know that it can get done.”
And even in the rainy Northwest, Kachmarek will also strive to do all he can to continue to conserve water. “See how little you can live with,” he advises. “Always try to push the edge, and don’t get complacent.”
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.