Golf clubs modernizing irrigation philosophies to adjust for water scarcity
EDINA, Minn. -- Take a look at an emerald green golf course and it's easy to see that maintaining it requires resources. Insiders acknowledge it's a pastime, a hobby, a sport, a lifestyle that needs water to run.
But more leaders in the space are trying to be smarter about how they use it. At one local course, a tiny tool and a major renovation changed things in a big way.
Edina Country Club Superintendent Brandon Schindele is modernizing, at least the greens, by making them more green. It was an overhaul that started out of necessity.
"It was 2009, and 90% of our putting surfaces were dead ... so it was like, alright, you need to do something," Schindele said. "We're king of getting into a nerdy, geeky kind of grass types ... so the grass on the green is called T1 Creeping Bentgrass."
Schindele says it greens up quicker in the springtime, and it's heartier, using less fertilizer pesticides and water.
"I don't think its any more expensive than if you were going to use something else," he said.
It used to be that you'd feel the soil's dampness to see when it was time to water the greens. Now, a device can measure how saturated the ground is. Schindele says that the soil's volumetric water content doesn't need to be any higher than 10% before they consider watering.
"When you start saying well we're doing this based on data we're doing this off of science it kind of oh okay well that makes sense," he said.
All around the course there are systems hooked up to each sprinkler head, and a weather station tracks rainfall, which is communicated back to Schindele's office.
Each sprinkler head can be tweaked to only use what's needed, a system that conserves while improving the game.
"I think we've also proven they're getting better playability out of the golf course by using less water -- more firm and fast fairways," he said.
Other courses use their topography to their advantage, essentially using retention ponds to capture storm water and runoff and then using that to irrigate. They do that out at Prestwick Golf Club in Woodbury. The city put in a pump system a few years ago and it covers 10% to 20% of what they use.