Course Maintenance

9th Hole

we are very excited to announce the installation of an extensive drainage system on the 9^th hole, commencing on October 3^rd. The works are scheduled to be carried out until Tuesday the 11th October. During that time period the 9^th hole will be closed. The hole will reopen, however, on the weekend of the 8th/9th October to minimise disruption.

While the 9^th hole is closed, golfers are asked to walk within the designated area, which will be marked out running from the 8^th green to the 10^th tee. There will no exceptions to this and any persons reported or caught trying to play the hole while the works are being carried out will be immediately escorted off the course.

Players are welcome to use the 1^st hole on the Little Bristol Course to complete an 18-hole round during this time.

This is to ensure the safety of the contractors and the public as there will be a variety of large machinery working around this area and appropriate risk assessments have taken place to limit the interactions between the two parties.

These works will begin from the front of the tee, running continuously through the fairways and up to the green complex banking.

This work will be carried out by a contracted firm Turfdry, who specialise in sports turf and golf course drainage installation.

We have been working with and planning the drainage works on the course for over a year now, which including an GPS Typographical survey of the entire site to determine and understand what best drainage installation would work for our site.

In the above picture, this gives you a detailed breakdown of the extent of the works that will be carried out the hole during the drainage installation. 53 individual drainage lines will be installed along the hole in total.

As you can see, starting in front of the 9^th tee on the carry, the drainage pipe will cover a vast area of the hole at spacing of between 3 or 4m to ensure the greater chance of successfully draining away the rain water and keep the area as dry as possible.

Turf dry will be using its unique Hydraway Sportsdrain which will be run across the fairways, then connected into conventional perforated pipe for carry the water away to the nearby ditches and drains.

The Hydraway Sportsdrain surface area is 40% greater then an 80mm plastic perforated pipe and 100% greater then a 60mm plastic perforated pipe. This mean that water can drain through 75% of Hydraway surface areas compared to 6% for a plastic pipe.

The Hydraway sportsdrain is covered in a clog resistant geotextile that allows water through at 60 litres per second per m2 under a 100mm head of water, which combined with the high in-plane water flow of the drain , enables rapid dispersal of excess surface water course by have rain showers.

Another benefit of using the Hydraway Sportsdrain is that is only one-third the width of an 80mm plastic pipe and can be mechanically installed much quicker and neater within a narrower trench, around 2’’ wide. This means that once installed, backfilled and topped with sand immediate play can commence.

The Installation of the Hydraway is carried out in three primary stages.

https://youtu.be/UxdvmbQ3lTU

Stage 1

A tractor mounted trencher, fitted with a whiz wheel, will dig into the ground, excavating a narrow trench with the spoil be collected and fed along a conveyor into adjacent tractor and trailer. This spoil will then be dumped back into the existed 9^th open ditch on the left hand side , which we are partially back filling 60% of the ditch.

Originally the 9^th ditch was dug for when were going to carry out drainage in house while under the ownership for GetGolfing. The new primary open ditch was to be feed with draining pipe directly and the water carried of towards 8^th. Unfortunately though we were let down by the ownership who never supplied the trencher and materials and the work never began.

Working with Turfdry , we implemented a new system of pipes that will run adjacent to the ditch and therefore means we can partially backfill 60% of the length of the area now as it is not necessary for this drainage installation.

At the same time the spoil is being carted onto the conveyer, the trencher will also be feeding the Hydraway piping back into the trench.

Stage 3

The final stage has the remaining trench backfilled with sand based root zone to the top, followed after will a roller to compact the sand into the trench ready for reopening.

While this work is being carried out, back up the top of the hole, a new open V-Ditch and Carrier ditch will be dug. The purpose of this open ditch is as a catchment to stop any surface water running from the top of the 1^st hole all the way down t the 9^th and further saturating the top area of the fairway which commonly in the winter is post and roped off due to water logging.

The Open V-Ditch will be dug along the banking, starting in front of the green, and run along to the other side, where another carrier ditch will be dug all the way to the ditch on the 4^th Tee. A combination of 6’’ perforated and non perforated piping will carry water down to the ditch and this carrier ditch will be back filled and put back into play once pipe and stone have been installed.

As I mentioned before, all this work is to be carried out from October 3^rduntil October 11th with the exception of the weekend of the 8th/9th.

We have been very fortunate to be given the approval from the owner to go ahead and trial this drainage system on the course and we all hope that the effectiveness will have a great impact on the playability of the course through the winter months along with our growing reputation in the area for what a great club we have.

Be aware though that with all the best laid plans there will always be a chance of hiccups on the way and potential delays, but working very close with the contractors we will try and limit this to a minimum and get everything back in play as soon as possible.

With ongoing recent weather being on our side and dry, we can guarantee that the efficiency and tidiness of the work will be great as the removal of spoil when in a dry condition is night and day in comparisons to partially saturated soils.

So let’s all keep our fingers crossed as we begin an exciting new chapter at The Bristol and FINALLY get the drainage we all have been hoping on for such a long time.