Michael A (Mike) Kahn, Golf Business Consulting. Phone: 941.739.3990 Fax: 425.675.6909 Email: mike@golfmak.com

I hope you find this page helpful. I would appreciate it if you would take a minute to review this page all about: EZ-Zack

 

A FRENCH DRAIN FOR A GOLF COURSE

Golf course architects and many superintendents hate French Drains, but sometimes they are the only solution short of a bottomless capital budget. Done properly they can work well. The illustration below included about 600 feet of this type of drainage. They dug the trench with a 24 inch backhoe following a surveyed route with only a few inches of fall. Although the recommended fall rate for a French Drain is 1/4 inch per foot, as long as gravity is on your side, it will have some effect.     

Pictures below show a French drain pattern to alleviate a continually wet approach fronting a green at a Florida Golf Course. The area was not properly drained during construction - but that's another story and why you hire a guy like me early in the project. The area was carefully surveyed to find the maximum fall from the approach area to the lowest nearby swale along which the French drain was plotted. Three separate tributaries fed the main line, all 24 inches wide. Two tributaries cut through the crotches of the three mounds shown in the upper background of Pic #2. The layers below the surface included shell on the bottom, black corrugated polyethylene 6" perforated pipe, and shell to the surface. The scar will either disappear as the Bermuda grass will cover it over within a few months, or for quick results, they will sod it over. Results proved excellent after the first heavy rain, and irrigation runoff disappears almost immediately. No more sponginess underfoot.

This job was done entirely in-house in about three days at a cost of less than $1,200.00 including labor.   

Now the old-timers can run the ball on. Heh! Heh!

NOTE: "I was there, arm waiving, as we drained a problem approach in (2000). Hate them or love them, with a French Drain we solved an eight-year-old mushy ground problem in front of a short par-3 green. Balls falling straight down were continually plugging and golfers hated it. With nightly irrigation, the spot never dried up and algae buildup resulted in barren, black ground without a blade of grass. Today the area is beautiful!" Mike Kahn, Golfmak, Inc.

  

#1: Ends at a 'T'. Shell was chosen because it doesn't affect the mower blades as might stone.  

 

  #2: Had to go under the cart path

 

How to build a French Drain. 

The slope you'll need (recommended) is 1/4 inch fall per foot. 

You'll need: 

• Surveyor's equipment.  (a net source: http://www.buysurveysupplies.com). In my opinion, if your golf course is more than 10-years old, you should own surveyor's equipment.
• Black Corrugated polyethylene 6" perforated pipe. (a net source: http://www.cpp-pipe.com/smooprod.htm)
• Aggregate material
• Soil (for backfilling)
• Backhoe with 18" or 24" bucket
• Three workers

 

 

1. Carefully survey the fall route from the problem area to the nearest swale. You may have to meander a little.
2. From the beginning point of the drain dig a trench about 10 to12 inches deep and about 12 to 24 inches wide depending on the volume of water you need to move. (If the fairway slopes upward you'll need to dig deeper as you move away from the starting point to maintain a downward slope.)
3. Next, pour in about 2 inches of aggregate. Lay the pipe over the aggregate.
4. Keep the perforations, or holes turned downward.
5. Pour in another 2 to 4 inches of aggregate to cover the pipe.
6. Back fill with soil (about 2 inches).
7. Plant grass.

#3: View of 24 inch wide French drain just completed.

 

#4: Front of green. Scar will disappear!

In the Bermuda grass areas, with about 2 inches of topsoil, the aggregate will disappear during Florida's grow-like-mad summer months. By September you'll barely notice the drain is there.

NO: They're not out-of-bounds stakes. They're my white Canadian legs!