Fairway venting

With such a wet winter the fairways have been struggling to drain well and the earthworms have been loving it. We have had a little dry spell and we have taken the opportunity to vertidrain the tees, surrounds and fairways. We have used 18 mm solid tynes at 150mm depth with a 5 degree kick to shatter the soil and hopefully remove surface water when it does rain again.

As usual we take great care to stake sprinklers, QC valves and valve boxes but we often have cause for concern for the underground wiring and irrigation pipework. When it was installed many years ago, the cable was mole ploughed at a depth of 75-100mm over quite a large part of the golf course. Over the time I have been at Avondale Golf Club we have found out about these areas when we have vertidrained and have had power issues with the system. Since then we have used a cable locator to trace the cable around the course and ascertain the depth at regular intervals. We have this information drawn on a map of the course for future reference. Over the years we have replaced quite a few of the worst areas of cable that have caused us problems. With  the new areas of trenched cable at a depth of 350-400mm these should be good for many years.

As it turns out we don't always miss these shallow areas!

Another problem we encountered when vertidraining was hitting this 100mm mainline. This pipe was hit quite a few years ago when we first started vertidraining fairways. No one at the club told me many years ago this area of fairway was lowered, or that they left the pipework in its original position!