Opening Golf to the World
Leighton Buzzard Golf Club
Leighton Buzzard Golf Club upgraded their entire irrigation system in 2019. The system now covers five times more area, but does not use additional water due its increased efficiency.
Leighton Buzzard Golf Club like many courses had an ageing irrigation system. This was approximately 35 years old in places, with a number of limitations. The 2018 drought, and subsequent slow recovery during the Spring of 2019, convinced the Club that immediate action was required. The old irrigation system covered greens, tees, five approaches and three fairways, and had been added to over the years leading to an inefficient system which could not be tweaked to provide directed irrigation to specific areas.
A decision was taken to install a new irrigation system in the winter of 2019, which now provides complete coverage of all greens, tees, approaches and fairways. The Club is mainly situated on pure sand but have roughly four holes on a clay capped old landfill. Due to their lower water requirement, these holes are not currently covered by the new system, but the Club have plans to add them in 2021 for completeness. The system has also been future proofed in its design and can allow additional sections without destabilising its operation. The total cost of the system was between £600,000 - £700,000 which is obviously a significant capital outlay, but has provided a degree of water security to the site and significantly greater control for the Club to manage their surfaces. Other costs such as seed for overseeding and mains water have also been decreased because of the system.
The Club's annual water use is around 8200m3, spilt between greens (2400m3), fairways (4000m3), approaches (800m3) and tees (1000m3). This has not increased significantly since the upgrade, despite the new system covering a 4-5 times greater area. This is because the new system allows much more targeted irrigation of specific areas, more efficient run times and optimum head coverage. The Club also use the system sparingly and make an effort to prevent overwatering of areas. To assist with this, greens are regularly monitored for soil moisture, with detailed records kept.
A new day tank of 500m3 allows some onsite security (potentially 15 days worth of greens only irrigation in a worst-case situation). This is filled from an onsite borehole providing 20m3 a day (maximum permitted without a specific borehole licence), with mains back up. The Club estimate that mains use has significantly decreased following the upgrade, and also have plans to install additional storage capacity to further reduce reliance on mains water.
The Club also has a disaster mitigation plan if mains supply is temporally suspended during a drought. This would involve the sourcing of grey water from their local water company which could be used as an emergency source of water to ensure survival of key areas.
Key Figures
- Total cost for complete system replacement - £600,000-£700,000
- Water use remained constant despite 4-5 fold increase in coverage
- Day tank of 500m3
- Borehole provides 20m3 a day
