#8 Drainage

The 1st stage of the drainage project on #8 has been completed for almost 2 months now and what a dramatic difference. What was once our wettest hole, with good portions of the year being unplayable or accessible, is now our driest! Even after some of the substantial rains we've received early this month, 4.1 inches in 4 days, equipment can still access this area immediately following such rainfall resulting in no damage. We are still restricted to cart paths, but below is a couple of pictures from today. 

Dec 5th, my cart is able to drive in the middle of the fairway causing no damage

Vehicle damage to turf before the drain and no damage after the drainage

The next stage is to continue the mainline up and into the bunkers while continuing the slit drains up to the beginning of the approach. Towards the tee in the rough, we must continue to topdress the area with sand to dilute the silt that is present. If we install the slits drains in this area prior to  the build up of the sand, the silt will cover the sand slit and dame the water from penetrating. I've attached a few photo's below going through the installation process:

Mainline excavation - Bill Michiel on the backhoe, Trevor Jones manning the laser lever and Aaron Mansbridge acting as the grader/clean out

More of the mainline excavation

Slit drain trenches - Aaron operating the trencher, Trevor controlling depth, Cam Ralfs cleaning up the spoils and Sam is inspecting the mainline

Cleaning up the trenches - Aaron demonstrating the final grade process to Erik Abbot 

Brock Tingey operating the controls to backfill the mainline trench with fairway sand. Trevor in the background tying in the 2" slit drain tile into the mainline.

Addtional mainline backfilling - Brock on controls, Cam skillfully driving the tractor

Erik and Ray Wynne backfilling the slit drain trenches and Brock is compacting the sand

More backfilling of the slit drains

All trenches backfilled and cleaned up - Sam is performing a final inspection

Sam is taking a break after we're all done a hard weeks worth of work

In the early spring, the mainline will be topped up with soil and seed while the slits will naturally grow over finishing the project.