Dealing With Wet Winters
Submitted by Craig
Loving
It seems like every year there are areas on each course that
remain wet throughout the winter months.
Whether it’s an approach shot that doesn’t quite make it onto the green
or losing a few yards off of your drive, these areas have an impact on the
playability of the golf course. The
following paragraphs will explain why this happens, what measures we’ve taken
to minimize this, as well as future projects to eliminate some of these wet
areas. We will briefly explain our
winter irrigation adjustments, the effects of winter rain events, and how we
deal with these conditions.
Irrigation
During the winter months (November through March), we cut
back our watering based on the needs of the plant. As the turf goes into winter dormancy, the
plant shuts down and water and nutrient uptake is reduced substantially. We schedule our irrigation cycles based on
evapotranspiration rates, which are reduced during cooler temperatures. For example: in mid-summer months (ET of .26)
we would need to water an area for 15-18 minutes to replace the moisture lost
from both water evaporation and plant transpiration (evapotranspiration). In the winter (ET of .06) we could water the
same area for 2-3 minutes for the same effect.
A majority of our focus in the winter is maintaining optimum
root moisture to the greens. We check
moisture levels on a daily basis, then hand water or run irrigation cycles
accordingly. Fairways, tees, green
surrounds, and rough irrigation are reduced as well, generally dependent on
rainfall totals.
Winter Rain
Rainfall is the primary advocate for wet conditions on the
course during the winter months, mostly due to its unpredictability. We can control every individual irrigation
head on our course in regards to the direction, irrigation time, and irrigation
amount for over 1,000 heads per course.
However, if we get a 2” rain event in December all we can do is wait for
it to dry. In some cases, this could
take several days.
There are two key factors behind why the drying process is
prolonged during the winter. The more
obvious factor is that cooler temperatures reduce evaporation rates. The lesser-known factor deals with a dormant
plant’s inability to uptake water.
Therefore, most (if not all) of the turf drying comes from a reduced
evaporation rate. So when a 1” rain
event happens in the middle of summer with high temperatures (and an active
plant), it would take much less time to have playable conditions than when the
same amount of rain occurs in the middle of winter.
Protecting the
Turf
After a winter rain event, we generally play it as safe as
possible to ensure the health of the turf on our courses. When grass becomes dormant, it loses its
ability to recover from cart traffic ruts in wet areas like it would during the
growing season. This is the reasoning
behind extended cart path only days, which is unfavorable for every
golfer. We have fairways on each course
that may be 90% dry after a rain event that are cart path only, but are deemed
so because the lower wet areas are too large to rope off for 1-2 days. Some of our current worn areas in fairways
and rough are due to high cart traffic in the winter months, and possibly due
to a lapse in judgment by allowing carts in those areas at the wrong time of
year (after rainfall). We plan to be
sterner in the future in this regard, and although it might not be a popular
tactic, we believe it will help us with long-term turf health.
Drainage
We plan to attack some of these lower wet areas with
supplemental drainage to shorten the length of “cart path only” time. These projects are ideal for winter months
when our focus is on special projects and not on maintaining turf height. With a trencher attachment to our skid steer,
this process should be much faster than in years past. Cowan Creek remains the course that needs the
most supplemental drainage, as well as original drainage improvement. We’ve seen dramatic improvements in areas
that we’ve previously added drainage, and we hope to soon eliminate all of
these long-term wet areas.
