Golf Engineering Associates Technical Help Series

Proper Planning: The Key to a Successful Golf Irrigation Project

Planning The Right Way: Small Projects

For projects under $250,000, your irrigation distributor(s) is a good place to get recommendations. Like any capital investment, we suggest getting at least two opinions from different sources. Your questions should include:

• What is the best type of system for our course?

• Who is going to design the system?

• Do you have any contractor recommendations? (get at least 3)

• What's this going to cost? Any ways to economize?

Try at least two distributors in your state and keep records on their answers. You might want to get a price quote on a sample list of equipment just to see where they come in BEFORE you start the design. In the end, you will have to deal with the distributor throughout the project and afterwards: go with the one who will treat you right. Throughout the planning stage you should be asking around to other golf courses and find out their experiences with recent irrigation projects.

Planning for Big Projects:

For projects over a quarter million, do not rely on the distributor to provide design services. One of the biggest mistakes people make when building or renovating a golf course is by having the distributor "do the plans for free" for them. In return, the distributor gets an over-stuffed equipment order and more than makes up for his "free" advice. Let's face it, nothing is really free out there in business, and this design-for-free scheme is a perfect example. For big projects the best thing to do is hire an independent irrigation design consultant like Golf Engineering Associates. Some of the things that GEA and other field experienced, independent irrigation consultants can do for you:

• Professional design blueprints for budgeting, bidding and construction.

• Water usage estimates, lakes, pump systems, fertigation, acid injection, water features, wet wells, intake flumes, filters.

• Technical specifications to clarify the project for all participants.

• Irrigation ideas to improve the golf course and save you money.

• Budgeting, estimating, value engineering (saving money), project scheduling, bid administration and contractor selection.

• Field staking (mapping out system before construction), construction quality control, site reports, project management.

• Final inspection, start-up, testing, as-built drawings, GPS Mapping.

• Central control computer programming, water budgeting and optimizing your new system for efficient irrigation.

There are independent irrigation design firms all over the world who can help you get the most from your investment. When researching various firms, carefully review their references, project list, professional liability insurance, and the recommendations of others in the golf business. Most important: have they ever actually installed an irrigation system?

Renovation Question #1: Should We Do It Ourselves?

Small jobs like adding a few heads or re-doing some tees can be handled by your own crew who probably have enough day-to-day irrigation knowledge to get the job done. The big mistake is "biting off more than you can chew" in terms of project size. Significant money usually is not saved with in-house projects, and the quality suffers almost every time when compared to jobs that utilize golf irrigation professionals. Our guideline: if the project is $100,000 or more, don't do it in-house unless your crew has excellent irrigation skills.