NorCal XGD Field Day at North Ridge CC

Matt Magarian  and his crew have begun on their second green at this William F.Bell designed parkland layout outside of Sacramento, CA in Fair Oaks. This club opened in the early 1950's and has poa/bentgrass greens and bermudagrass fairways. North Ridge CC is also hosting an XGD Systems Field Day tomorrow morning at 10am for other clubs to stop by and view Matt and his XGD crew in action on a green here, as well as viewing the finished opened green of hole#1, that Matt completed this past Saturday morning.

You can see from Matt's picture below how great the green looks after our surgical installation is completed in about a 2 day period or less:

During the morning Field Day XGD President Geoff Corlett will also be giving a drainage seminar. So, please view this blog as an open invitation to come out to North Ridge CC tomorrow morning at 10 am to view a green under the knife.

Once Matt completes the two greens here he heads to complete a green not too far away at Sierra View CC  in Roseville, where the XGD team will be completing green there from Thursday to Saturday of this week. Please contact us at XGD if you can't make tomorrow's Field Day and perhaps you could stop by to see Matt at your leisure later this week.

Out, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer

Richter Park GC XGD after the snowstorm

After catching up with Richter Park GC superintendent Robert Dorsch at the New England Regional Turf Show last week in Rhode Island, he was kind enough to fire me off a few pictures of our internal subsurface greens drainage installation at his course. Richter Park Golf Course is located in Danbury,CT and is a picturesque public course located on a reservoir with water coming in to play on 14 of the 18 holes. The course was designed by Edward C. Ryder and opened for play in 1971.

The club had experienced some winter damage in the winter of 2011, and was looking for ways to enhance the turf health on several of their problem greens. While XGD is not a panacea for winter damage there are several ways our process can put your greens in good stead for whatever Mother Nature may toss your way:

i)when heading in to the winter period XGD greens will have optimal moisture in them and not be over saturated before the ground freezes

ii) when the ground freezes(or this winter, if the ground will ever freeze) some strategically placed cup cutter holes over top of our XGD laterals can aid in surface water removal even if the top few inches is frozen, and taken to the next level XGD can leave you some risers in these areas as well

iii)when the ground thaw does occur in the we find an XGD greens soil temperature will warm up about 2 weeks faster than a non XGD green on your course - this is due to the fact that we have removed the useless gravitational groundwater from your greens subsoil which keeps the soil temps very cool, conversely in the heat of the summer XGD provides the opposite effect by removing the steamy, hot groundwater and providing a temperature cooling effect by doing so.

We arrived at Richter Park just before the Halloween snowstorm of last fall and the picture below illustrates some of the challenges we faced after the storm ceased in order to get back to work as quickly as possible. Also, a big thank you to Rob Dorsch and his staff for helping us do so, and helping us getting around the course as well.

Take a close look at the back of this green and you can see the snow was piled up over 4' high in some spots.We also had a crew over at Hartford GC at the same time who faced some of the same challenges we did on this site, which mostly included getting around the courses with not just the snow issue but all the trees and branches that had fallen under the weight of the white stuff.
Finally, Rob sent me this picture of some happy golfers just minutes after we had completed the green, and as advertised open for play immediately:

We lost several days of production on these CT projects, but it was a testament to both our staff and the courses staff that helped minimize our downtime and get us back out their working as soon as it was safe to do so.

Cheers, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer

Making An Impact With XGD Fairway Drainage

XGD has been very fortunate to get a winter project on the fairways at the highly acclaimed Alotian Club in Roland, Arkansas. Initially, they signed on for over 20,000 lineal feet of XGD fairway drainage. After we got one partial hole completed in December, the club has significantly increased the scope of work, and we have had to mobilize more staff to the project.

XGD Projects Manager Matt Magarian has been on site and with his new iphone, I have been pestering him for more telling pictures and video of our unique subsurface internal drainage process, and he has come through with flying colours, as can be seen by the following picture exhibiting the striking difference between a drained fairway area and an undrained area:

If you look closely on the right half of the picture you can see the XGD fairway drainage laterals terminating just short to the middle of the picture.
The dark colour of the zoysiagrass fairway on the left exhibits how wet they truly are, as the gravitational groundwater table is right at the surface. Also, notice Matt terminated the XGD laterals at the base of the slope, as initially we went after the wettest areas of these fairways. Yet, even after a heavy precipitation event, the surface water may have runoff the top of the slope, but the groundwater sure has not.

Over the holidays the management staff and owner of the Alotian Club, drove out on the fairways with golf carts after a 2" rain event. As evidenced above on this hole, they could only drive on the areas where Matt had drained, and couldn't drive on some of the normally higher ground areas, as the water table was at the surface. Hence, the proof was in the pudding so to speak, and their desire to have more consistent playing conditions drove them to increase the scope of work.

One final note, one flaw of zoysiagrass might be that once it gets wet it is highly unmanageable as compared to most other warm and even cool season grasses, especially so during dormancy, as is the case during our project at Alotian. Matt's photo certainly illustrates the impact our XGD fairway drainage can have, so please feel free to contact us or the Alotian Club if you desire some of the finest turf conditions at your club or sports field. For more information, on the specific spacing and techniques used at Alotian please review my December blog on XGD Fairway Drainage Results which details the specifications we used at Alotian.

Over and Out, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer

The Longue Vue Club EXisting Greens Drainage

I wanted to show a few pictures of this grand old club in the Pittsburgh area, The Longue Vue Club . This sleeper of a club also boasts one of the golf worlds top 10 clubhouses, for those that are in to that kind of thing. Most of my readers are in to golf course architecture, and this club boasts a virtually untouched(greens) A.W. Tillinghast gem:

The above pic shows a work in progress, but notice the mild berm/mounding around the back of the green which does continue around the entire left side. Several of these types of greens exist at Longue Vue which serve to cut off the surface water from the surrounding hilly terrain before it gets close to the greens surface. As well, the club has already installed interceptor drains inside the mounding to try and cut off the gravitational groundwater which is causing sidehill seepage on to the greens surface. But, that has not even proved to solve the entire problem, as the club has chosen to move forward with our internal, subsurface greens drainage system as the last step in their process to firm up their classic putting surfaces for the long term.

This finished pic above illustrates the walk down from the cart path where I took the pic. There is no berm or mounding encircling this green as the terrain behind is only rising 10', and not close to 100'. However, an interceptor drain is still needed here in the collar to prevent the subsurface groundwater from bleeding on to the greens surface between our XGD laterals.

So again, reach out to us as hundreds of other clubs have, to discuss a possible solution to your clubs drainage issues. And stay tuned as I show some more miraculous fairway drainage pictures where we have  allowed clubs to provide premium playing conditions immediately after heavy precipitation events. Lets face it, for the sport of golf to continue sustainably, the ability to provide more playable golf days on the calendar will serve both public and private facilities well over the long term.

Bye for now, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer

XGD Fairway Drainage Results

We received  this video yesterday from superintendent Jim Colo from the ultra-exclusive Alotian Club near Little Rock, Arkansas. It is pretty well self explanatory:

Matt Magarian and his crew, just arrived here a few weeks ago after being frozen out up in Chicagoland. The fairways at Alotian are zoysia and that explains the dormant look. In these particular heavy clay soil conditions, we chose to use an 8' spacing for our 2" XGD laterals, installed at a minimum depth of 16", and back filled with a free draining sand percing at about 18"/hour, with sod lift and relay. The only thing left do at this point is to install some rodent guard protection at the outlet pipe to ensure the long term success of the drainage system.

This internal subsurface drainage system's main thrust is to remove the useless gravitational groundwater, which in turn lowers the groundwater table, allowing for movement of surface water into the subsoil and in to the soil between our laterals, and ultimately in to the XGD drainage lateral from the bottom up, not from the top down. This simple drainage theory allows us to return the sod over top of the XGD laterals, and we don't get caught up in impeding surface water flow, by reinstalling the sod folks, again, groundwater drainage is bottom up and not top down, despite what you may believe, or learned in turf school. I will quantify that statement by acknowledging that fairway drainage systems with solid pipe and surface inlets and/or catch basins installed in hollows or low spots is top down drainage. But, that has produced some of the problems they are experiencing at Alotian, and we have been contracted to supplement this type of "top down" drainage with our XGD System. We are also pulling out several catch basins, and perforating them and back filling around them with pea stone to alleviate the soggy conditions immediately around these basins, caused by the trapped groundwater.

Matt will be returning in the new year to complete the rest of this winter project, with the scope of work including over 20,000 lineal feet of 2" XGD, and some 4" interceptors and mainlines, with some catch basin repair and enhancement.

So please reach out to us so we might be able to help you bring your fairways up another notch, and help provide those firm, fast, sustainable turf conditions, that ultimately will require less inputs in the future.

Bye for now, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer

Installation Crew Updates

Here it is today, December 12, and all six of our crews are still hard at it, although the end may be near for three of them any day now.  Matt Magarian's Chicagoland crew has downsized and moved to The Alotian Club, near Little Rock, AR and they have been working on a fairly substantial fairway XGD project that will take them through the end of February:

These dormant Zoysiagrass fairways are a tough cut with the Miltona sod cutter, but as you can see the detail this sod cut provides is world class.
There is a great story behind this highly exclusive golf club built in 2004 by Little Rock billionaire Warren Stephens, and designed by Tom Fazio. The Alotian Club's name is derived from a group of wayfaring golfers, including Stephens, who set out to play the best courses in America. The trips became known as the "America's Lights Out Tour"(ALOT). Over time, members began calling themselves Alotians, hence the name of this golfing gem.

Mark Rowan's crews just finished most all of the greens at Elmwood Country Club and moved to Fenway GC, also in Westchester county, above NY. They may have hit a snag here though as the greens sod is proving too frozen to cut. The club has covered a few greens in anticipation of holding some heat in, and we will try again tomorrow morning. Both Elmwood CC and Fenway are both classic old A.W. Tillinghast tracks.

Jim Phelps and crew just put a ribbon on a six green/approach project on Long Island at North Hills Country Club , this club originally formed in 1927, and moved to their current location in 1961 when Robert Trent Jones built their new facility. Jim has since moved on with his crew this week to assist in finishing up at Fenway.

Finally, Tom Hundley and his crew are just about completing their internal subsurface greens drainage installation at Talbot Country Club on Maryland's eastern shore. As in most of the turfgrass business this past year, it has been a long and trying time to try and complete most all projects on time and in our usual precise manner. But, we couldn't be happier, as we have been able to service most all of our scheduled clients, save for some projects being pushed to the spring, which happens most years anyways.

Regards, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer