Drainage Pipe Sizing for Golf Courses

Why is 4″ pipe the turf industry standard?

Why don’t we utilize it more at XGD Systems?

Polyethylene drainage tubing or culvert has always been assumed as the perfect size for most drainage lateral applications. When this coiled tubing essentially replaced clay tile, in the farm field drainage industry in the 70’s, the pipe manufacturers of the day observed the golf industry as a potentially long term client, and wanted to devise a pipe size for installations of that period.

Knowing full well that surveying skills were pretty rudimentary with lasers just venturing on to the scene, they wanted golf course drainage pipe installers to be able to make a grade error, and still have long term use capabilities on the product. So, 4″ tubing production drove the market or at least does in the golf course tubing market. The USGA green specifications http://www.usga.org/ include 4″ pipe, and always have since the inception of the USGA green. Truthfully, with proper grading and pipe installation techniques of today’s professional XGD installer, 2″ Turflow pipe http://www.hancor.com/ could be used instead of the larger pipe.

As you may observe in the photo the micro-slits in the XGD pipe supplied by Hancor. When our pipe installers at XGD secure the tubing in the perfectly graded trench bottoms, you can see the micro slits are similar to a closed eyelid, and keep the larger sand particles out of the XGD pipe, while letting in enough water when the greens soils are pushed to field capacity, gravitational groundwater will quickly enter the drainage pipes, until relief of the pore space is achieved, as the gravitational groundwater table is lowered and oxygen is literally sucked back in to the subsoil pore space as the water table is drawn down.

At XGD, we recently have completed a fairway drainage project pretty darn close to sea level with outstanding immediate results after a heavy precipitation event of 3 inches. Several low lying golf holes at CC of New Seabury http://www.newseabury.com/ were being impacted, and the club was looking for a cost effective solution to avoid drainage pumping stations. They contacted us and we set about creating a master drainage plan for the specific mini watershed at New Seabury, keeping in mind to install several larger mains for the club or XGD to utilize in the next phase of fairway drainage restoration. Many clubs are realizing the expert drainage installers at XGD have the best reputation in the business for sourcing new and creative ways to install underdrain at your golf course or sports field.

So please take the time to reach us out to us at XGD http://www.greensdrainage.com/ , and begin a dialogue on your specific drainage issue that is holding your club from joining the ranks of the firm and fast.

Cheers, Poor Old Dirt & Grass Farmer