At Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, Florida, superintendent Todd Draffen was noticing inconsistent turf quality and playing conditions. Poor irrigation performance was causing some areas to become overwatered while other areas required hand watering on a regular basis to address consistent dryness. He was also having to replace worn irrigation heads regularly because the high salt content in the irrigation water had taken its toll after 17 years of using the system.
It became obvious after evaluating the irrigation coverage that new nozzles or heads were needed to fix the problem. Simply replacing nozzles would have only provided a short-term fix, but the long-term solution of replacing more than 2,500 heads was an expensive proposition. To demonstrate the value of new irrigation heads, one tee complex was fitted with new heads and their performance was evaluated. After successful results the decision was made to proceed with upgrading the irrigation heads throughout the golf course. Due to the size of the project and the costs involved, the irrigation heads would be replaced in stages, with putting greens and tees getting first priority.
A local irrigation consultant performed catch-can analyses before and after irrigation head replacement on three separate putting greens, surrounds and teeing grounds and then averaged the data. Distribution uniformity remained the same around putting greens at 0.76 but it improved from 0.61 to 0.74 in the other areas, which allowed for a reduction in runtime by three minutes per head, per cycle. This will result in a savings of approximately 40,000 gallons each cycle or approximately 3 million gallons of water annually. It was striking to learn how much water the older heads wasted each year due to poor distribution uniformity. Turf quality and playing conditions also improved considerably in the areas where irrigation heads were replaced. The improvements were evident even at a glance.
If you feel like your irrigation system isn’t delivering the results you want, it may be time to replace critical components. Testing possible upgrades on a smaller area of the golf course can help you determine whether a larger investment will yield a worthwhile improvement.
Southeast Region Agronomists:
Chris Hartwiger, director, USGA Course Consulting Service – chartwiger@usga.org
Steve Kammerer, Ph.D., regional director – skammerer@usga.org
Addison Barden, agronomist – abarden@usga.org