• Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of the Golf Monthly community! We hope you have a joyous holiday season!

Fairway Watering

Lord Tyrion

Money List Winner
Moderator
Joined
Sep 9, 2014
Messages
29,262
Location
Northumberland
Visit site
Our course has a large reservoir which ran dry for the first time this summer.
We’ve installed a very expensive borehole and are looking at doubling the size of the reservoir soon.

We should be doing it on a national scale, but of course no one wants a reservoir building near them. We should also be building desalination plants.
I was talking about this the other day to a friend. If you have to have something built near you then I would take a reservoir every time. No noise, likely to be screened but if not you are looking out over water. Lovely. Alternatively, that same space could be used for a sewage works, landfill, 500 new houses etc.
 

Golfnut1957

Newbie
Joined
Jul 24, 2009
Messages
1,790
Visit site
Ifffff the predictions work out to be true...then summers will be warmer and dryer.....the need to at least water enough to keep the grass from dying off so badly it takes a year or more to grow back decently will be a real concern.
Ifffff this should happen you need to move to the North East, one thing we are never short of is water/rain.
 

Mandofred

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,059
Location
Harrogate
Visit site
Ifffff this should happen you need to move to the North East, one thing we are never short of is water/rain.
I'm fairly close....and I tried to get my wife to move there when we came back to the UK....damage this last year on our course, although not too bad. Course I was at before that (pretty well all courses) had damage that took over a year to recover from....about 4 years ago? Was that the really recent dry summer? I could hit a wedge that summer and it would roll out 200yds....like hitting down an asphalt road.
 

jim8flog

Journeyman Pro
Joined
May 20, 2017
Messages
16,064
Location
Yeovil
Visit site
Our course has a large reservoir which ran dry for the first time this summer.
We’ve installed a very expensive borehole and are looking at doubling the size of the reservoir soon.

We should be doing it on a national scale, but of course no one wants a reservoir building near them. We should also be building desalination plants.

We have a borehole but we are limited by licence as to how much we can abstract.

A few years ago (last hot dry summer before 2022) we came within a few gallons of our limit

We do not water the fairways in years like last year, just the approaches.
 
D

Deleted member 29109

Guest
We have a borehole but we are limited by licence as to how much we can abstract.

A few years ago (last hot dry summer before 2022) we came within a few gallons of our limit

We do not water the fairways in years like last year, just the approaches.

That sounds like our agreement. Last year we ended up paying for mains water. Which was very expensive so we were only watering greens by the end of summer.
 

backwoodsman

Tour Winner
Joined
Mar 3, 2008
Messages
7,053
Location
sarf Lunnon
Visit site
That sounds like our agreement. Last year we ended up paying for mains water. Which was very expensive so we were only watering greens by the end of summer.

If you have a borehole, then you'll have a licence (or should have - it's required). And your licence will state how much water you can extract. And usually, what you can use it for. I think our club's licence is for 45,000cu.m/year, and we use nearly all of it. Greenkeeper would like to use more (were the licence to allow it that is) but time and equipment means he can't get anymore onto the course anyway

(And OK, you don't need a licence for all boreholes. Dont need one if you extract less than 20cu.m/year but that's way outwith the scope of a golf course)
 
Top