September 2023 Update

 Hey folks,

Hope everyone has, despite the rain, has had a great summer.  In the future I don't think that we can look back on this year and not mention how much and how often it rained.  Its definitely been a year by which will judge others, a base line for how bad it can be.  Since May 15 we have had 68 days where rain was measurable.  Not all of those days were monsoons (some were), but 38 of those days accumulated 5mms or more.  

 The charts above, taken from a website called https://fredericton.weatherstats.ca/, illustrates the frequency of the rain fall amounts.  Its typical that the region would experience sporadic periods of prolonged precipitation, but its unusual to say the least, that it occurs with such regularity.  Quite a bummer when your trying to get stuff done.

Rain is usually a good thing on a golf course but too much can have detrimental effects.  In the obvious column there's a revenue loss, the bunkers never really dried out to repair, the rough was tough to cut on a regular basis, and the carts were on the carts paths for more than were would like.  

The amount of water made managing the greens a challenge.  The root zone under each green is basically a bowl filled with sand with drains in the bottom.  They are designed this way to be able to control water availability to the plant. Typically we would fill the "sand bowl" with irrigation and allow it to dry down over a week, and the roots will "chase" the water down.  Longer roots means stronger plants with better storage for those times of stress. 

With the sand constantly being filled from rain the roots became "lazy" and never really developed, which leaves the plants with less stress resistance.  I am concerned for the winter hardiness, but the fall is shaping up decent amounts of sunshine so that is positive. 

The constant rain also presented another issue we didn't for see. In the spring we often see water forced to the surface through hydrostatic pressure, the melting snow ice fill the earth with water and it surfaces through crevices. A good example of this is number eight.  Each year a spring surfaced on the tee side of the fairway...or so we thought.  

About mid summer the spring popped up again and we began digging to extend a previous drain.  

It was then that we discovered a mysterious four inch irrigation pipe that was not part of the functioning system, running perpendicular to the the fairway towards seven fairway.

 After some investigation we discovered that it was a drain from the waste area between 16 and 7 fairways, a left over from the original design of the golf course.  We re-routed the line to an existing drain and have added a vertical riser to the inlet to trap the water between 16 and 7 to create a pond. 

If its viable we'll improve upon the area, which should speed up play by reducing folks hunting for balls. We're not sure of the outcome just yet but it seems to holding water so stay tuned. 

Another spot where the water has pushed through the surface is 13 cart path.  We began digging an intercept trench on the left side of this cartpath to collect the water and ran into some pretty big rocks.

The water was freely moving from the ground and across the surface of the cart path.

We began using our backhoe to dig a trench for water egress.....

and quickly discover we were going to need a bigger boat.

We brought the 410 over from the construction team and moved the larger material out of the way to create space for the drainage.

Once the drain was in place we created a vertical window for observation and back filled the space with 1 1/2 inch clear stone to allow for water movement.

After that it was resurface and left to settle.  This area is one of the places earmarked for paving after closing so its great that we had the water issue cleared up prior to that.

Hope everyone has a great winter and check back in the spring for more updates!