Irrigation Driven Sump Pump

We have been wanting to improve the drainage in front of 6 green for several years.  During large rains our "French drain" sump fills with water and must be pumped out with a transfer pump.  In an ideal situation electricity would be available somewhere close and a simple electric sump pump could be hung in the catch basin.  But this area on 6 fairway is not near electricity so instead we used unique system developed by Turfdrain that allows us to move water without electric power.  In this application, irrigation water is run through a siphoning valve that then sucks the water out of the sump and pumps it through the outlet pipe.

This first picture shows the excavation of the old gravel fill sump.  This was complicated by the water still in the sump and the caving of the banks but Richeson Irrigation dug us a nice hole.

Here you see the new catch basin draped in erosion cloth to prevent contamination.  To the right is the 1" line that ties into the irrigation system.  To the left is the outlet piping that will carry the water up and over the hill to the east.  As you can see we backfilled with sand which should move water better into the sump and not get as clogged with sediment like the previous gravel layer.

The project nearly complete-just waiting for the sod..

 
Finally here is the working parts of the system.  You can see the float ball that will automatically open the siphon valve when water reaches a certain level in the catch basin.

We have been pondering doing this sump (which almost always holds water after any large rain event) for some time now and we are quite excited to have this really cool system installed and ready for the next thunderstorm.  Kudos to my crew that knocked this out in a day.

More Accolades

Recently Wild Horse received some more accolades that can be seen at the following links.

golfdigest.com/gallery/americas-100-greatest-public-courses-ranking

https://www.nebraskagolf.org/top-10-you-can-play-in-nebraska/

It is an honor to be highly thought of by these sources and others that have included us in their best golf courses listings.

So how does a course get into such lists and what role does maintenance play in that regard?  Each publication or panel of raters has criteria for rating courses and most of it is based on the design of the golf holes and how they challenge the golfer.  Criteria can vary from one source to the next which can account for the differences in course rankings from one list to another.  As with all rankings there is the subjectivity of each rater that can make the difference between being 56 or 78, but that really doesn't matter much.  If Wild Horse is included in these lists it must generally be a highly regarded course among the best in the state and nation.

At the stockholder meeting this year I talked about what I feel the maintenance team's role in this ranking game is.  We are the coach that hopefully maximizes the "talent" of the course.  Wild Horse is a great design with variety, strategy, and fits well into our prairie landscape.  So we have plenty of "talent" to work with.  Then we try to maximize the golfers' experience by providing great playing conditions that contribute to the design of the course.   For example the greens and fairways have some slope to them but are not overly severe.  Therefore we try to maximize those slopes and run-up areas around greens by keeping them firm and fast as possible. 

Along with playing conditions, we strive to keep the architectural merits of the course relevant and intact.  What exactly does that mean?  That means keeping bunkering looking as intended by maintaining the "blowout" look.  It means keeping mow lines in their place.  It means examining teeing areas and adjusting if necessary to weather conditions and/or player capabilities.  It means managing the native vegetation and topography to visually accentuate the golf holes.  Some of these things probably are not consciously recognized by most golfers, but together these things create a product that subconsciously "feels right" to the player.  Then when they are done with their round they say that was fun. 

We hope that our work solidifies each golfers' perception of Wild Horse as a top-notch facility-one that they want to return to often. That's what we are trying to accomplish.