Opening Golf to the World
Oake Manor Golf Club
Oake Manor Golf Club was built in 1993 on existing farmland. The Club currently utilise hand watering and boreholes for their water needs, with a huge potential for water harvesting in the future.
Oake Manor Golf Club was built in 1993 on existing farmland. Hillfarrance Brook runs through the site and follows a meandering path. This was taken advantage of in the golf course design, with several lakes added in order to add water features to the course. These lakes are around 2.5m deep and hold a significant volume of water on the course.
The Club have a relatively new irrigation system which covers greens, tees, approaches and 3 fairways which has an average annual water use of around 5000m3. Irrigation is applied very sparingly around the course, with moisture meters used to inform irrigation practices. The Club aim for a green soil moisture content of 15-20% and utilise hand watering to tailor irrigation throughout the summer to ensure consistency. Water is extracted from an unlicensed borehole (up to 20m3 a day) into a large irrigation lagoon (5000m3) located next to the clubhouse car park. This lagoon has a relatively small area (400m2) but is very deep (12m), and thus could be expanded if needed. The Club do extract water from the river (unlicensed abstraction of up to 20m3 a day) to top up the lagoon when needed, but this does not happen very often.
Although the lake system is more used for aesthetic purposes, a series of sluice gates can be operated to increase/decrease lake levels. This is needed to be able to desilt the lakes on a regular basis. This type of lake network could potentially be used as a flood mitigation system for downstream areas if required by the EA or Water Companies.
The Club also have huge potential to harvest water from the clubhouse (1000m2), sheds (650m2) and carpark (5500m2), which could potentially yield a total of 4550m3, nearly the Club's current annual irrigation usage.
Key figures
- Water demand: 5000m3 a year
- Current water use: Borehole (20m3 a day), River extraction (20m3 a day)
- Irrigation lagoon capacity: 5000m3
- Potential water harvesting capacity: 4550m3 a year (clubhouse 600m3, sheds 450m3, carpark 3500m3)
