| Water quality and scarcity do not seem to be the pressing issues for Midwest superintendents as they are for turfheads in other parts of the country. However, I do not necessarily subscribe to the thinking that water is less of an issue in the Midwest then elsewhere. So, I contacted Jon Jennings, CGCS, at Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Ill., to see if he had any water-related issues and to talk about the challenges he faces with irrigating his course. Jennings has been Chicago Golf Club’s superintendent since 2000. However, I first met him in the mid-nineties when he was superintendent at the Patterson Club in Fairfield, Conn. A very straight-forward individual, Jennings is a no-nonsense superintendent and is known for his professionalism and wry sense of humor. He used to be a marathoner, having run in eight marathons, including the Boston and New York marathons twice each and the Chicago marathon four times. He now focuses on half-marathons and smaller races. Chicago Golf Club is one of the classic golf courses. It’s the oldest 18-hole golf club in the U.S. (1892), originally designed by CB Macdonald and redesigned by Seth Raynor in 1921. It’s one of the five founding clubs in the USGA, and has played host to three U.S. Opens, four U.S. Amateurs, a Women’s Open, a Senior Open and two Walker Cups. So you might assume it is equipped with a high-end, efficient irrigation system. But Jennings says this is not the case. Then again, I had my suspicions about this, too. You see, I chose to interview Jennings because I knew his irrigation system is aging. In fact, it no longer matches the golf course and, without a doubt, water regulation and its associated challenges are in the facility’s future. Many superintendents, regardless of where your course is located, can likely relate and sympathize with Jennings. So we got together to discuss these challenges, his irrigation strategy and improving playability with less water. What type of irrigation system are you working with at Chicago Golf Club? The irrigation system was installed in 1991, so it is 20 years old. It is a simple double-row fairway system. The sprinklers are Toro 750’s and the control system a Toro OSMAC (RDR’s) with a Site Pro central control system. A Flowtronex pump station was installed in 2001 with a capacity of 1,200 gallons per minute (gpm). What do you dislike about this system? We are a links-style course. The irrigation system does not match the course. Sprinklers on most of the fairways throw into the rough and the native rough. Much of the native rough is fescue and does not require excess water. To an extent, the system has changed the way the course plays due to watering the native areas. Additionally, the water window is too long. It’s not due to the pump station, but due to pipe size. Many of the mainline pipes are only 2 1/2 inches. Some holes are fed only from the center of the hole and the piping loops through the fairway and includes looping around the green and tee. Although the pump station has a capacity of 1,200 gpm, it is only operated at 900 gpm due to the pipe size. If it is operated at capacity the friction losses through the pipe system cause too much pressure loss and the velocities are higher than I would like. What do you like about your system? I like that it is simple. There are only five- or six-part circle sprinklers on the entire golf course and the control system – although limited in its capabilities – is easy to use as I only have seven controllers. Describe your water supply. What is your annual water use? The water supply consists of a 500-gpm groundwater well that feeds my irrigation pond. The well is adjacent to the pond and close to the pump house. Due to the large water capacity of the well, I don’t draw down the pond very much. I now use between nine and 12 million gallons per year depending on the weather. The nine million gallons was in a wet year and the 12 million in a dry year. Do you consider yourself an efficient irrigator? How are you efficient? I do consider myself an efficient irrigator. I utilize the ET (evapotranspiration) number from the weather station as an indicator of water use and also carry a Turf Tech International moisture sensor in my cart to check moisture levels daily. We are also, from a maintenance standpoint, constantly leveling and setting sprinklers to grade, which makes a big difference in the irrigation system operating correctly. How do you determine the amount of water to apply? I look at the ET for the day and the projected water use for the next day. I deficit water from the ET number provided by the weather station based on feel and my 10 years of experience at Chicago Golf Club. We hand water isolated dry spots and use the moisture sensor to spot check areas on a daily basis. How does your irrigation system waste water? The system applies water in areas where it is not needed, especially the native rough. With almost all the sprinklers being full circle, there is no room for adjusting off the areas that need less or no water. The pressure in places is too low and that requires us to water longer to compensate for the poor uniformity. The fairway, approach and tee sprinklers are twinned together. Therefore, I am always compromising between the needs of the two different areas the sprinklers cover, so one is probably getting over-watered. We have very large greens, which with full-circle sprinklers are difficult to water precisely. If money was no object, what would your No. 1 irrigation improvement be? Replace the control system due to its radio communication. It is antiquated and I would like something more versatile and with greater reliability. A new control system would also require less maintenance and provide for independent sprinkler control. Additionally, when the FCC narrows the frequencies I have to update the radios, and that is expected to occur again next year. Is your water quality a concern? Yes, to a degree. It is slightly high in bicarbonates and sodium, but the native soil is a good buffer and the combination acts as a growth suppressant. Rainfall releases the bicarbonates and provides a flush of growth at times, so the water actually provides some benefit as a growth regulator. I do not filter the water or do injections including wetting agents, but I do have the ability at our pump house. From a superintendent’s perspective, what is the easiest way to save water and what’s the hardest? The easiest way is by paying attention to the areas that need water and not just setting the irrigation system to water. Paying attention involves changing the irrigation schedule daily and using the tools available to you, such as moisture sensors and weather stations. It also involves going out and looking at the golf course and watering based on your feel and experience with the property. The hardest is by reducing the amount you water to improve playability, but as a result it changes the appearance of the golf course, as in less green. Players sometimes don’t understand it is a compromise and expect great playability and a green golf course, but only where it is supposed to be green. Do you pay for water? Not directly, we just pay for the electricity to pump it. We have unlimited use and neither our pond nor well are required to be permitted. However, we still monitor our water use so I can manage it. Also, when the day comes that well-permitting is required, we will have all of the history on how much water the irrigation system uses. Are you under pressure to save water? Presently, there is no regulatory pressure, but the player mandate to improve playability reduced water use. So that’s pressure. Have you been able to decrease your water use during your tenure at Chicago Golf Club? And if so, how? I have had the ability to significantly reduce water use over my tenure here due mostly to improvements in playability, cultural practices and fine-tuning irrigation through the use of feel and the moisture sensor. In 2000-2002 I was using 14 million to 16 million gallons per year. In 2009 only seven million gallons was used, and in 2010, 12 million gallons. Obviously it varies upon seasonal rainfall. |
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