Managing microclimates

Published November 05, 2014

The Omni La Costa Resort is tucked in the epicenter of California’s water conundrum.

Batiquitos Lagoon rests across the street from the resort’s entrance. The lagoon is 610 acres with a drainage basin of 55,000 acres. The Pacific Ocean meets land three miles away. San Marcos Creek cuts through the resort.

Sitting in a second-floor office inside a maintenance shop surrounded by prime San Diego-area real estate, veteran La Costa superintendent Steve Auckland describes the challenges of maintaining a 36-hole facility that must satisfy members, resort guests and daily-fee players. Seventy-percent of a 30-minute conversation focuses on water. Here’s the frustrating part: none of the water near La Costa provides immediate assistance in keeping turf on two upscale courses healthy, playable and economically viable.

“It’s all of California,” Auckland says. “You cannot operate your product and make money at the cost of water. There’s no way. You have to make decisions.”

Brian Darrock maintains a golf course in the same region and must make similar decisions about the same resource. Fairbanks Ranch and La Costa are 10 miles apart. Contrasting surroundings hide the geographical proximity.

Fairbanks Ranch doesn’t border a lagoon and the ocean is further away. The San Dieguito River, which runs into the Pacific Ocean, borders Fairbanks Ranch. Rugged terrain and horseback riding facilities surround the 27-hole facility.

Frost – yes that does happen in Southern California – covers part of Fairbanks Ranch around 40 times per year, according to Darrock. Enduring frost is easier than handling changes in water policies.

“The biggest challenge going forward is going to be the cost of water,” says Darrock, Fairbanks Ranch’s superintendent since 1989. “It’s going to keep going up. I don’t know the percentage it will go up, but it continues to go up. I don’t see it going down.”

Neither does Tim Barrier, the superintendent at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club. Fairbanks Ranch and RSFGC are separated by three miles. But they share little in common besides the city name on the scorecard (Rancho Santa Fe). The Olivenhain Municipal Water District directly oversees Fairbanks Ranch’s water supply. RSFGC is in the Santa Fe Irrigation District. The local authorities are part of the 24-agency San Diego County Water Authority. The authority is part of the Metropolitan Water District. The MWD oversees 26 Southern California cities and water districts encompassing a region with nearly 19 million residents.

Large machines moved the land needed to create Fairbanks Ranch in the 1980s. RSFGC was constructed in the 1920s using horse drawn Fresno sleds. More than 500 palm trees create an oasis-like setting on the Fairbanks Ranch grounds. RSFGC’s soils are heavy clay and giant water-guzzling Eucalyptus trees line the course. Fairbanks Ranch has paspalum fairways; RSFGC uses a hybrid Bermudagrass. Fairbanks Ranch irrigates most of its turf with reclaimed water. RSFGC can’t use reclaimed water because the closest connecting point sits four miles away. The club irrigates its picturesque 18-hole course with potable water, an increasingly expensive resource.

“It’s tough delivering great conditions if you don’t have water,” says Barrier, who became RSFGC’s superintendent in 1992. “If you didn’t, it would turn into that…” Barrier stops his golf cart and points toward wayward areas purposely turned brown. RSFGC has started a turf removal project that will yield a generous rebate and save huge amounts of water. “We would be completely demolished if we didn’t have water,” Barrier continues.

La Costa, Fairbanks Ranch and RSFGC are survivors. They have developed ways to endure distinct microclimates presenting the same dilemma – how to identify and manage useable water.

Welcome to San Diego. Enjoy the surf, views and breeze. Just remember no two golf courses feature the same water-management challenges.

“In Southern California, water has always been critical,” says Dave Fleming, a golf course architect who spent 23 years as a San Diego-area superintendent. “If you’re in an area that gets rain, you don’t even think of saving water. We have always tried saving water. If you save water, you save power to pump the water, power to extract water out of a well. It’s a power savings and it’s a water savings. Superintendents have always been good at managing that.”

Less rain, more changes

Six inches. Auckland can’t escape the bleak total, which represents the average annual rainfall at La Costa since California’s current drought started in 2011. The start of the drought coincided with significant changes at La Costa, which hosted the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions from 1969-98 and Accenture Match Play Championship from 1999-2006.

A revamped Champions Course debuted in 2011. To conserve water, 45 acres of turf was removed and replaced with native grasses and mulch. The rough and native areas include paspalum, a drought- and salt-water tolerant turfgrass. A revamped Legends Course debuted in 2013 with enlarged bentgrass greens, altered bunkers and paspalum fairways.

Paspalum’s roots in San Diego, coincidentally, extend to Fairbanks Ranch, one of the first courses in the country to install the variety. The golf course at Fairbanks Ranch opened in 1984, the same year the club hosted the Olympic equestrian speed and endurance event. Paspalum showed immediate resiliency, withstanding stress created by 50,000 curious spectators trampling on the grounds to witness the first – and still only – Olympic event contested in San Diego. More importantly, paspalum could handle challenging growing conditions.

“The reason they put it in is because of this river valley,” Darrock says. “The sodium levels are so high in the soil that they had to find a grass that could survive that. At that time, we just had the well water to use for the roughs. The well water was running at 1,800 TDS. Cool-season grasses, which would be ideal for this climate, you couldn’t grow because of the water situation.”

La Costa’s soils are heavy clay and laced with salt. On the rare occasions it does rain, some flooding occurs. To combat the flooding, fairways, tees and approaches were raised as part of the renovations overseen by Damian Pascuzzo, Steve Pate and Jeff Brauer.

The majority of the water used on the two courses is reclaimed, which Auckland says includes more salts, but also more nutrients than potable water. The greens on the Champions Course receive potable water. The greens on the Legends Course receive reclaimed water. “We were constantly giving the freshwater greens more fertilizer just to keep up with the reclaimed greens, which was very interesting,” Auckland says.

Other contrasts exist between La Costa’s two courses. The Legends Course is overseeded. The Champions Course doesn’t undergo the same procedure. The fairways on the Champions Course are Tifway 419 Bermudgrass.

La Costa didn’t overhaul its entire irrigation system during the renovations. But new pump stations featuring variable speeds eliminated major irrigation concerns. The old system operated at one speed, and Auckland says the resort would experience 12-15 main-line breaks per year. Neither course has experienced a main-line break since the renovations. La Costa can receive as much as one million gallons of reclaimed water per day from the Leucadia Wastewater District’s Gafner Water Reclamation Plant.

“It’s a huge savings in labor,” Auckland says. “It’s just confidence. You can go home and sleep at night and not worry. Even though we are using reclaimed water, we are spending a lot of money on water. 700,000-800,000 gallons of reclaimed water is what goes out at night.

“Now we have things much better. With the old system, it was 10 minutes at night. That was the max you could put out. We have a new irrigation control system called Lynx from Toro. You can maneuver heads and manipulate things. We are much more efficient with the water we have. Before, it was everything gets 10 minutes. Now, it’s like, ‘This gets 10, this gets 15, this gets nothing.’ You are much more balanced in what you are doing.”

Not as salty

A gigantic reminder of the effort needed to develop new water sources in Southern California towers above the Pacific Ocean coastline north of San Diego.

The Carlsbad Desalination Project, in its third year of construction, is 65 percent finished. The project’s developer, Poseidon Resources of Stamford, Conn., and the San Diego County Water Authority, are aiming for a 2015 completion.

Desalination is an energy-intensive process that removes salt from water. The Carlsbad Project costs $1 billion and could meet 7 percent of San Diego County’s annual water needs by 2020. A 10-mile pipeline will connect the facility with a regional delivery system.

Golf course superintendents are closely following the project’s progress. Widespread desalination remains a curiosity in the golf industry. “It would be as early as 7-10 years when you could go to that water,” says Steve Auckland, superintendent at the 36-hole Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad.

Some courses, including Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, are considering installing their own desalination systems. Cost, available space and brine/concentrate disposal are obstacles for golf courses interested in the process.

Eric Johnson doesn’t maintain a course in Southern California. But he can relate to the plight facing the region’s superintendents. Johnson also understands desalination’s potential.

Johnson is the superintendent at Ranchland Hills Country Club in Midland, Texas. Ranchland Hills installed a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis (RO) system to provide desalinated water from tee to green. A new ownership group purchased the system in 2012. The system started providing treated water for the course in 2013. Reduced sodium content in the water has allowed Ranchland Hills to maintain bentgrass greens. TDS levels in well water range from 3,800-4,000 TDS. “To grow bentgrass, anything over 800 is the kiss of death,” Johnson says. Ranchland Hills’ RO system can reduce TDS levels below 300.

“There’s no way we would be able to operate bentgrass greens here without this water quality,” Johnson says. “Members love good greens. It has kept the membership higher because we have a product that other courses don’t have unless they get a desalination plant.”

West Texas is one of the few places in the United States experiencing water-related challenges comparable to the ones in California.

“We still have access to wells, but we are in a semi-desert area,” Johnson says. “People frown if they see a lot of wasted water. Here, the Achilles’ heel is the sodium in the water. The water quality is very bad.”

No good options

Efficiency matters in California. When Auckland arrived at La Costa in 2001, he says water costs occupied 20 to 22 percent of the annual maintenance budget. That total has increased to around 35 percent. An acre foot of reclaimed water now costs more than $1,500 in Carlsbad. “Even though my usage has gone down, my costs have risen dramatically,” Auckland says. The Carlsbad Municipal Water District directly oversees La Costa’s water supply.

Darrock and Barrier crunch similar sobering numbers. Fairbanks Ranch pays $1,300 an acre foot for reclaimed water. “It’s a big chunk of your budget,” Darrock says.

Fairbanks Ranch started using reclaimed water in 2006. The reclaimed water measures around 800 TDS, meaning it includes less salt than the well water that was utilized by the club. The nitrogen found in the water represents an added bonus.

“If I was on potable water like some of the courses in the area, I would be a little more concerned,” Darrock says. “They have more reclaimed water in the area than they know what to do with it. They are looking for customers to sell more water to because they are producing it.”

California departed a severe drought in the early 1990s when Barrier arrived at RSFGC, sparking numerous discussions about using reclaimed water on the course. Each discussion featured the same conclusion: affordable ways to bring reclaimed water to the site didn’t exist. “Getting reclaimed water here is extremely expensive, in the order of $15 million,” Barrier says.

The course rests on a floodplain six miles from the Pacific Ocean and features hybrid Bermudagrass fairways and Poa annua putting greens. Every acre of the course is irrigated with potable water, and the club’s annual water bill has risen to $600,000. The average U.S. golf course spent $40,949 on water in 2013, according to GCI’s 2014 State of the Industry report. The Santa Fe Irrigation District charges customers more than $1,700 per acre foot for potable water.

RSFGC is exploring the possibility of an on-site desalination plant, but disposing of the brine/concentrate is tricky. In the meantime, RSFGC has improved the efficiency of its irrigation system and embarked on an ambitious turf removal project.

The turf removal project overseen by Fleming started in late-September, and 18.6 acres will be replaced with drought-tolerant landscape. The club is eligible to receive $1.62 million as part of a Metropolitan Water District rebate program.

Less turf helps Barrier manage his biggest maintenance problem: less rain. RSFGC hasn’t received nine inches in a single year since 2009. “When I got here in 1992, it was all about the drought,” he says. “And then everybody stopped talking about it. We were fine for six, seven, eight years and then we had a drought again, and we’re like, ‘What are we going to do?’ This has been a vicious cycle, and I have seen it happen three or four times.”

At least Barrier has company. Neighbors with contrasting microclimates are stuck in the same cycle. Oceans, lagoons and creeks can’t mask this reality.

Away it goes

Remove turf. Get a check.

The hassle caused by construction should be worthwhile for Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club. The historic club outside of San Diego embarked on a project that will swap 18.6 acres of turf for $1.62 million as part of a Metropolitan Water Authority rebate program. The sum represents a huge windfall for a project that had been part of the club’s master plan.

The wait caused by a temporary inconvenience – a visitor’s late arrival to an appointment – led to superintendent Tim Barrier contacting a Santa Fe Irrigation District representative to discuss turf rebates. One particular part of the call shocked and intrigued him.

“I made a phone call just on a whim,” Barrier says. “I know Las Vegas, Phoenix and Palm Springs have had a rebate program. I thought I would fire a shot in the dark to see if our local water agency is doing any type of a rebate. I talked to a woman and she said the Metropolitan Water District just started a $2 per square foot rebate. I said, ‘Did you just say $2?’ She said there was no real limit on the square footage because they want people to participate in the program to save water and money. I immediately got a hold of my club leadership.”

The Rancho Santa Fe Association board approved funding for the project this past summer and work started Sept. 21. The reduced acreage will also save the club $80,000 on its annual water bill. RSFGC is working with Golf Design Properties, a Southern California firm led by Dave Fleming, a former superintendent turned architect. “It’s a win-win,” Fleming says. “The club gets money for doing the renovation and the club enjoys savings every year on water and maintenance”

A spray application in August killed the turf slated for removal. Soil was then pulverized to aid the installation of drought-tolerant California native plants and grasses, including four species of manzanitas. The native areas take a year to establish and 3-5 years to mature. Disruption to play is minimal, according to Barrier and Fleming. Work should be completed by late November, and Fleming says the changes will not affect the course’s playability.

“That’s our job as an architect,” he says. “We don’t want to discourage golf, we want to encourage golf. Areas we look to remove are areas they don’t play in, around the tees, the zones between the green and next set of tees. We give them an ample golfing corridor.”

The project trims the acreage of irrigated turf from 115 to 97. Barrier says the club wants to drop to around 90 acres of irrigated turf by identifying more out-of-play areas for removal. Fleming envisions a slew of Southern California courses devising similar plans. In addition to RSFGC, Fleming is overseeing large turf removal projects at two other San Diego-area courses: Carmel Mountain Ranch Country Club and Del Mar Country Club.

Guy Cipriano is GCI’s assistant editor.

Illustration by Matthew Laznicka

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