• Client - Redditch Golf Club
• Value - £68,000
• Date - September 2022

​Fairway Drainage at Reddtich Golf Club

The Club had been experiencing poor drainage on several fairways during the winter (and occasionally summer) months, so we were invited to draw up a new system to tackle the problem. The fairways we looked at already had older systems installed which were no longer effective. In the main these used clay land tiles and would therefore be a minimum of 40 years old. There were also some more recent small bore plastic pipes with low quality backfill.

The new system would comprise 80mm lateral drains installed at 4m and 5m spacings, connecting into 100mm main drains. Backfill for the new drains would be clean 2/6mm gravel, topped with a sand/soil/compost mix that offers surface drainage while ensuring rapid establishment of new grass over the drainlines.

Initially the contract was for the 5th, 15th & 16th fairways, but after works were re-scheduled owing to bad weather the contract was extended to include the approches to the 2nd, 6th, 8th & 16th greens. In total 4500m of drains were installed over the 6 holes worked on.

Works started in early September 2022 and were completed at the beginning of October. Every effort was made to minimise the disruption to golf, with only one hole being closed at a time and fridays dedicated to reinstatement to allow the course to be fully open for the weekend.

As with many golf courses, the layout of the irrigation pipework was only partially known. The drainage scheme was designed to run drains in-bertween known irrigation pipes, especially on the approaches to the greens. Elsewhere the pipework & cables were located with a CAT & Genny to check routing, with tweaks being made to the design as required.

At the end of the works the drainlines were all brushed and re-seeded to get some new grass established as quickly as possible - very important to prevent washout of the backfill during storms.