Ealing Golf Course Agronomy Department: Drainage Project Recommences

Last week the greenstaff got back to the drainage project that was started in 2012. Over the last few years we have concentrated on holes 1,2,3,4,8,11,12,13 and 15. This has made a huge difference to the playability of the course during extreme wet weather. Combined with good cultural practises such as fairway scarifying and hollow coring, the difference in performance has been great to date.

This year we are concentrating on the 6th and 7th fairways, whilst linking in to the area to the right of the 12th green. Over 2000 metres of pipework was installed. The 6th fairway in particular proved very challenging. Unfortunately the ditch (which is the outlet) sits slightly higher than the fairway.

The weather was superb during this works and even though the hours were long and hard, the procedures went very smooth. This week we are now concentrating on 'snag jobs' with lots of gullies and headwalls with tidal flaps being installed.

From next week we will start to link up the primary drainage with secondary by means of our 'gravel bander'. This has proved very successful on our clay based golf course and helps to move the water sideways in to the pipes. We set the bands at 0.8metres, with the main drains sitting in general at 10 metre centres.

We are really pleased with the work so far and will continue over the whole of October.