Roger Meier, Golf Course Superintendent at Valhalla Golf Club, has been busy.  Since closing the golf course in August of 2011, he has overseen the reconstruction of all of the greens, practice range, renovation of rough areas, along with adding or renovating 12 bunkers, and the on-going installation of a state of the art irrigation system.

Starting April 9^th, Siphon Systems, Inc. will begin the installation of a drainage system designed by Turf Drainage Co. of America. The system was designed with the objective of providing drainage results comparable to what could have been achieved with sand capping the course. The installation of the drainage system will not require the grow-in that would have been necessary with sand capping, and will be accomplished for less than a fourth of the cost.

Sanders’s Construction, famous for their attention to detail in greens construction, rebuilt the greens complexes. The greens will be seeded in T-1 creeping bentgrass. Leibold Irrigation, out of East Dubuque, IL, was chosen to install the Tony Altum irrigation design.

Roger is planning on an opening date in the fall of 2012, and will be looking forward to hosting the 2014 PGA Championship.

In addition, we will have our flagship product Turf Drain, along with the patented Perma Basin, Channel Drains, and the Turf Drain Siphon System, plus many other items from our line.

You might be interested in considering a PERMA BUNKER when you see the quality of the sand four years after construction.

This picture shows the sand around the Perma Basin that is installed in the PERMA BUNKER. The sand is in the same pristine condition as the day it was installed, because the stabilized subgrade has stopped the contamination that occurs in other bunker construction methods.

Mike Archer with Sequoia Greenscapes has built 1,000 bunkers with this method in the last five years. This method has many advantages, not the least of which is cost. This bunker method can be less than half of the cost of some other methods being used today, and the longevity is unparalleled.  No course has had to replace a PERMA BUNKER to date. Mike will be working with us in Booth 2264. Come discuss the benefits of a PERMA BUNKER and if it is for you.

Architect Jeff Blume coordinated the restoration of the course, originally built in 1931, and designed by John Bredemus. The project included the construction of USGA spec greens that were grassed with Mini Verde Bermudagrass. Drainage concerns were addressed using Perma Basins, IDPs, and Turf Drain products manufactured and supplied by The Turf Drainage Company of America.

Turf Drain was utilized for internal bunker drainage to insure that gravel was not introduced into the bunker sand and possibly become a contaminant.

Perma Basins were installed in newly created collection areas around the greens so that these depressions would remain firm and dry and could be tightly mowed.

IDPs were utilized to address unique drainage situations where deeper than normal (or available) relief points were needed. One such installation allowed a new drain field requiring a 3′ deep relief point to be connected to an existing outfall pipe that was only 12″ below ground. Additionally, due to the fact that the IDP does not require electricity to operate its pump, a substantial savings was realized.

The contractor for the project was Mid America Golf and Landscapes out of Lee’s Summit, Missouri.

There is much misunderstanding as to when and why someone should use a siphon as opposed to a gravity relief. The first thing that we should clarify is that the Turf Drain Siphon System is a transportation system, and not a collection system. However, having said that, a siphon basin does have the ability to collect surface water through its open inlet, and seepage water through its permeable sidewalls. But these collection components aren’t the determining factor as to when it should be used. The primary factor that determines when it is used is the available elevation change between the collection point and the relief.

One of the most important principles of proper drainage installations is “Self Cleaning Velocity.” This principle says that if a pipe isn’t installed on a steep enough gradient, contaminants will settle out, and over time, will restrict the flow of the pipe. We won’t go into the exact calculations here, but this is the source of the common guideline used in the golf course industry; that 4” pipe (plastic smooth wall) should be installed on a 1% slope (larger pipes can be installed with less of a gradient).

The primary factor that determines when it is used is the available elevation change between the collection point and the relief…”

The problem is that although most people are aware of this rule, and tries to adhere to it when the slope is easily available; there is no real alternative in areas where the slope can’t be achieved. Therefore in most cases, the course goes ahead with the installation at less than the required slope.

The Turf Drain Siphon System is designed for these applications. A siphon system is designed to drain down to an equilibrium point. At this point, the system stops draining, even though the pipe remains full of water. Therefore, at this point we have NO velocity. Since we have no velocity, we know that the contaminants that are in the water stream will settle out over time. Because of this, we design the system so that it can be flushed.

Since we have no velocity, we know that the contaminants that are in the water stream will settle out over time. Because of this, we design the system so that it can be flushed…”

A siphon system is built with HDPE pipe that is fused, and can be pressurized. This is the same pipe that is becoming popular in irrigation systems. We have been using this pipe for 20 years in our siphons because of its higher quality. The ability to pressurize the lines, and the connection we make to the irrigation system, means that self cleaning velocity will never stop you from being able to build a system with a long life.

This capability makes it possible to install the system in flood plains where contamination from a flood event can completely destroy a conventional system, even one that has “self cleaning velocity.”

In either case, a perforated pipe and gravel system immediately starts to function as a leach field instead of a drainage system. In a situation such as this, as the water level at the relief rises and fills the pipe with water, the water seeps out into the gravel bed and saturates the profile.

Giving the water the access to the full length of the wetted perimeter exposes much more of the soil profile to saturation than would occur if the system was not in the ground. Once saturated, the water has to be removed, along with the water that saturated the profile from the rainfall. It would have been much better if the system had never been installed.

Once saturated, the water has to be removed, along with the water that saturated the profile from the rainfall. It would have been much better if the system had never been installed…”

There are two possible solutions to this problem. The first is the use of a check valve. The check valve will close when the water at the relief is higher that the water inside the system. Even though the system won’t drain at this point, it prevents the excess saturation. TDA sells many different types of check valves, and has a patent pending on a new computerized check valve for large diameter pipe.

The second, and ultimate solution for these types of situations, is to use a check valve in combination with a pump. This system not only prevents the saturation of the profile from the rising relief, but can be designed where the area can be drained even while the water at the relief is above its resting level.

These types of systems can be used on small scale, as we do on golf courses, or on a large scale, as New Orleans does. It is a system based on this principle that allows our office to sit at an elevation of 3 feet below sea level (works pretty good most of the time).

Next quarter we will talk about the problems created when perforated pipe is used as transportation pipe.

As you can imagine, the winter snowfalls can be a real challenge for long time superintendent Matt Brewer to deal with in the spring. Matt turned to Turf Drainage Co. of America to help him with his most difficult areas. A strategic plan was done in 2010 to give the club a realistic appraisal of the overall cost of the project.

Next, the club decided which holes were the worst, and embarked on the first phase of construction. Because Matt had the ability to bring in some additional seasonal employees earlier than usual, he chose to have Turf Drainage Company of the West supply a construction superintendent and two operators to work with his crew.

Matt says, “In my case, we wanted to use as many of our assets as possible to keep the cost down. It worked out great. They gave us exactly what we needed for our project.”

The project involved the installation of some Mini IDPs to pump some areas that caused standing water during heavy rains and snow melt. The pumps saved thousands over the cost of installing new large gravity lines. As you can see by the attached photos, grading pipe through the mountains is no easy chore. The river rock is plentiful and close to the surface.

If we would have used traditional methods and had to grade the pipe, we would have had to put in hundreds more feet of pipe through rock. It would have cost us 10x as much as using the IDPs…”

Matt continues, “The pumps allowed us to actively move water and relieve some low collection areas. If we would have used traditional methods and had to grade the pipe, we would have had to put in hundreds more feet of pipe through rock. It would have cost us 10x as much as using the IDPs.”

Matt concludes by saying, “We are very pleased with the final product and the ability to move water to keep the course playing in top condition for our Members and Guests.”

Prolonged wet stretches, such as what the Midwest expereienced in 2011, meant missing mowing opportunities that kept Brian from having the course in tournament condition every day. Brian and Dennis Hurley, President of TDA, spent three days walking the course in order to provide the club with a detailed plan of what was needed to gain control over the course during wet periods. The membership approved the plan by a wide margin in July, and will start the first phase of construction in September of this year.

Siphon Systems, Inc, a certified TDA contractor since 1991, will do the installation. SSI has installed TDA designs on famous courses such as Seminole, East Lake, Wade Hampton and many others. When completed, the project will involve installing drainage on 15 of the 18 holes. The project will be completed in 2012, and will total over 6,000 man-hours.

After 2 years of research and planning, I am confident that Dennis’s plan is that right solution for the club…”

Brian says, ”The past few seasons have driven home the point that having greater control of water is critically important. At Franklin Hills, we have a state of the art irrigation system that allows us to keep up with our members expectations. Unfortunately, our 50+ year old drainage system does not. Every year, we deal with too many days of overly wet conditions that prohibit the use of carts and less than desirable playing condition. After 2 years of research and planning, I am confident that Dennis’s plan is that right solution for the club.”

We see this every day on our golf courses when water runs off of hillsides. Not only is the bottom of the slope the wettest, but areas that run between mounds or valleys where the flow travels will be the wettest. These areas have to handle not only the water that is falling on the flow area, but the water that has fallen on the watershed above it. If we don’t collect this water before it concentrates in these areas, the heavy Concentrations of Flow will inundate an area to a point where it cannot be mowed. However, if we recognize these areas as opportunities to collect the water in the most concentrated part of the stream, we can become highly efficient with our placement of basins.

In the pictures shown, the placement of a basin in the narrow areas of flow allows us to collect large amounts of water inexpensively before it saturates the area around the basin at the bottom of the collection area. Thus, the objective here is to reduce the Concentrations of Flow by placing surface inlets higher in the stream’s elevation. In the next picture, we have water running across a cart path in a sheet. In this case, we want to increase the Concentrations of Flow by placing curbing in combination with an inlet.

Recognizing Concentrations of Flow during the planning of your drainage projects will allow you to collect the largest amounts of water for the least number of dollars. 

The Turf Drain Siphon System is a transportation system, not a collection system. In a later newsletter, we will discuss where and when it has advantages over other transportation systems. However, the purpose of this article is to clear up the notion that any drainage system can “wick” water. There are various claims by manufacturers and installers of other drainage products and systems that they wick water, or pull water from the soil profile. Either these claims are made to purposefully oversell their products, or made because the manufacturers themselves don’t understand the physics of water movement. The easiest way to understand water movement is to start with the clarification that there are two types of water that we deal with in the soil.

There are various claims by manufacturers and installers of other drainage products and systems that they wick water, or pull water from the soil profile. Either these claims are made to purposefully oversell their products, or made because the manufacturers themselves don’t understand the physics of water movement.

One type is gravitational water. This is the water that moves through the soil from the force of gravity. Only this type of water can be collected by drainage systems.

The second type is water that is not affected by gravity. This is the moisture that is held onto the soil particle by the forces of capillary tension. Capillary action is the force that causes moisture to rise in soils above a water table. This water can move up or sideways in the soil as easily as it moves down, because capillary tension is a negative hydraulic force that is stronger than gravity. The strength of the force is inversely related to the size of the airspace. For instance, if two capillary tubes, one narrow and the other wider, are placed into a pail of water, water will be pulled higher into the narrower tube. The force that causes the rise in the tube above the free standing water is the result of the cohesive and adhesive properties of water. This explains why water will rise higher in a clay soil above a water table than it will in a sand profile.

The graphic below shows the range of moisture levels that we deal with in the soil. On the right hand side of the graphic is the area between wilt and field capacity. This is the moisture range where we grow grass. The closer the moisture levels are to wilt, the thinner the layer of moisture on the particle. These tension levels are measured in negative millibars. The higher the reading; the thinner the layer of moisture. When the tension becomes so high that the plant can no longer pull the moisture off of the particle, the plant begins to wilt. Going to the left on the graphic, as more moisture enters the profile, the film becomes thicker and the tension lowers to the point where it is held lightly enough that it will start to release gravitationally. This is field capacity. Field capacity occurs at around a -.55 millibars (some publications will cite this from -.80 to -.33 because of soil type). This tension area is where gravity overcomes the negative hydraulic force of capillary tension.

Graphic courtesy of Robert O. Evans Ph. D., P.E. NCSU.EDU robert_evans@ncsu.edu

As more moisture enters, water starts to fill the airspaces in the soil, and displace oxygen. This is the area between field capacity and saturation. At saturation, there is no oxygen left in the soil, and we can no longer grow grass. Field capacity is often explained in golf course literature as the point after a heavy rain where the free water has left the soil, and the moisture that is left is measured as percentage moisture retention.

Now, back to the term wicking. Wicking describes the movement of moisture from larger to smaller particles. Drainage or permeability describes the movement of water from smaller to larger particles. For example, clay particles are smaller than sand particles, thus the voids between the clay particles are smaller than the voids between the sand particles. The larger the voids, the higher the permeability; therefore. you wouldn’t add a column of clay to drain sand, but we do add a column of sand to drain clay. Likewise, you would not worry about sand wicking moisture from clay, but a clay wall around the edges of a sand greens mix could cause drought on the perimeters.

If you had a drainage product that wicked water, it would have to have smaller capillaries than the material that was being drained. So if you were draining a clay, the drainage product would have to have voids smaller than the clay voids to create a force that would pull moisture from the clay. If it was installed into a clay that was less than field capacity, it would attract moisture to the point that the tension levels were the same for both materials and then stop. If it was installed in a saturated clay, wicking would cease almost immediately as the drainage product would quickly reach field capacity. The permeability of the drainage product would have to be lower than the clay, since the voids were smaller. Therefore, the drainage product would soon reach saturation as the gravitational water that was saturating the clay would saturate the lower permeability drainage product. In other words, you can’t wick your way to a drained soil.

If you had a drainage product that wicked water, it would have to have smaller capillaries than the material that was being drained.

Remember, the rise in a capillary tube is limited. Once it reaches a given height, it can’t pull anymore. So the ability of a soil to wick endlessly is impossible. If someone tells you that they have a product, method, or process that wicks drainage, you will know that this defies physics. You have only created drainage in a saturated soil when you move water from a lower to a higher permeability, with the ultimate permeability being free flow at the end of the system.

Does this mean that these products and systems that are claiming they wick water don’t drain? No. These products may very well produce results and drain gravitational water, but it is draining because gravitational water is flowing into it, not because it is wicking water.

Trey Cutshall, Superintendent at The Farm Golf Club, says “Until we did the drainage plan with TDA, we didn’t have a real grasp on the scope of the project. By being involved during the planning process, I knew that the areas that I felt were important were being included, and I had a much better understanding of what the options were in each area. Once we did the plan, it was much easier for me to communicate to our owner and members what they should expect from the project. It also allowed us to see exactly how much the budget would change if lower priority areas were removed during the construction process. The time and money we spent planning the project was paid back many times.”

Trey continues, “The most important thing it did for us was that it helped the owner and me realize that the project required the involvement of a contractor. Prior to the plan, we considered an in-house project. Once the plan was completed and I saw the projected man hours that would be required, it was obvious that we didn’t have anywhere near enough labor or equipment in our operation to produce the results we wanted.”

The costs of the plans are less than most people expect. 18 Hole Master Plans typically run $5,000 to $7,000 and take 2 to 3 days. One day plans are less expensive and can be done when only a few holes are an issue. Do your club a favor. Get a Master Plan on all of the drainage work needed on your course in the future. This plan can be followed for years as it is implemented in phases.

Cutting a drainage line while installing an irrigation system isn’t like cutting an irrigation line when you install drainage. You may not know a drainage line has been cut for several seasons. Even rains right after the irrigation project is completed might not tell you all of the damage that has been done. Many times the system will still work at a reduced efficiency for several rainstorms until contaminated soil enters the damaged part of the line and finally clogs the system to the point that it is no longer serviceable. By that time, the irrigation contractor may be long gone and all of the warranties are expired.

Are we saying, “don’t ever install an irrigation system with a vibratory plow?” “No.” What we are saying is, communicate during the bid process what will be expected of the contractor, so that he can properly bid the project, and be prepared to have someone on your staff inspect all areas.

Feel free to call us here at TDA. We will be glad to discuss the problems we have seen over the years with these installations, and the things you can do to make sure your project is installed successfully without surprises down the road.

The answer takes more than a simple “no” or “yes.”

Most of the misunderstanding about geotextiles comes from their original introduction into the golf course industry when they were first used as “socked pipe.” The industry installed the “socked pipe” into a bed of gravel. When failed systems were removed from the ground it was noticed that clay and silts had accumulated around the sock and the sock was blamed for the drainage failure.

In reality, the gravel had failed because it was not sized properly for the native soils. If the gravel had been the proper backfill the fines would have never reached the sock. If a backfill material with smaller particles had been used, such as a coarse sand, the native soil particles would have never moved to the sock.

By definition the description of a properly built seepage system is a stable system. The entire objective of particle sizing is to build a system that is stable. The system should allow for the movement of water without the movement of fines in the water stream. This is why TDA has recommended coarse sand as the proper backfill material to be used with geotextiles since 1983 when we introduced “Turf Drain” to the golf course industry. Geotextiles used in combination with a properly sized coarse sand will not clog over time.

Craig Felton, CGCS, golf course superintendent at Oak Hills since 2004, has 20 years of experience using greens’ covers to protect Bermuda grass greens in the south. Craig has always turned to TDA to manufacture his covers because of the wide variety of choices that they offer. Craig first worked with TDA when he was an assistant at River Oaks CC in Houston, TX. “After the freeze of ’89, we purchased plastic non breathable covers from TDA,” Craig explains. “In this part of the country, I like a solid plastic cover. We actually get a 2 to 3 degree temperature increase under the cover at night, as opposed to a breathable cover that only stops desiccation. This gives us the greatest amount of protection possible.”

TDA makes a complete line of covers, including breathable woven and non-woven covers. All of the covers are custom made for your course. It is hard to believe that with 100 degree temperatures across the country that it is time to prepare for winter conditions, but that is exactly the case. The first cold front will be here soon, and if you haven’t prepared for it by having your winter green covers in good shape, you could be caught off-guard.

The Turf Drain Siphon System is the first system that allows you to install drainage without grading the pipe. Siphons are ideal for coastal properties such as Palm Beach C.C., which sits on some of the most exclusive seaside property in the country.

Matt, who originally hails from Australia, is looking forward to a long tenure at the club. Matt was familiar with the Turf Drain Siphon System from his days on the Carolina coast. He also knew that finishing the installation of the Turf Drain Siphon System was one of the most important things he could do to make his renovation a success. Matt finished the plan by adding systems to 3 new holes, as well as upgrading the existing systems with new automatic flushes and more capacity, as well as extending the systems into new areas.

Matt says, “The new larger capacity siphons are great. The system just gives us a much firmer fairway than you can get with a conventional system. If you have a coastal property, you owe it to yourself to look at this system.”