#5 green drainage

 Many of you may have noticed our staff working just in the front of #5 green. As all of you know, this is one our greens that we have historically had problems with in the late winter to early spring. Our first intention is to find drainage pipes that have been crushed and/or damaged.
 Our first step is to locate the ends of the pipe in the lakes and/or drains, then we track the line until we difficulty moving forward. We then dig it up to take a look, so i wanted to share with you all what we found on #5 green.

This was our first dig after tracing the line some 40 feet from the edge of the lake. The hose had stopped moving forward on us and after several attempts to move forward no progress was made. We then traced it and marked the line with paint and dug. BINGO!

These next two pictures will show you what the pipe looked like. Some 40'0 of the pipe was crushed???

This discover was awesome for me, whenever grass does not perform well in a place that it should--That's telling you there's a problem in the underground world.

An additional discovery was made on how the drainage pipe ended??? This is the end of the piping in the pictures just above. The end of the pipe was buried along the edge of the bunker plus it had a rise over 14 inches-folks water does not drain uphill, another great discovery!

And guess what, another discovery was made On the left side of this bunker another drain pipe from the green was positioned the same way as the picture above showed and yes it was buried as well. WOW!

Finally in the end we now have all the crushed pipe replaced, both ends of the exposed piping is now connected together, plus one drain line now drains the greens to the lake.
In addition to the work we added a small future tool for us. At the end of the pipes at the edge of the lake, the pipes have concrete around them with the letter G for green or T for trap stenciled in. With concrete showing we'll be able to find them for sure.

We'll be moving on to #6 green next. Once the pipe is located all the same procedures will be followed to investigate any drainage issues. I do not expect to find drainage issues at #6 green only at the end of the piping, do I suspect the pipe may be clogged. 

This discovery 0n #5 green plus #4 green drainage was huge for us. However, only time will tell the truth if the drainage was the full issue. Let's hope so???

Thanks for all your support and patience while we are working in front of these greens while you all are playing golf.

Willy Plowman
Golf Course Superintendent