Gotta love irrigation breaks!

It's that time of the year again. Time to get the intake lines into the river, prime the pumps, and fill the irrigation lines with water. As a course superintendent, we are always crossing our fingers that everything will go smoothly. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We do our best every fall to ensure that every drop of water is blown out of every inch of irrigation pipe. Some years we "luck" out and there are no issues with this process. Most of the time we can expect to have something to fix. Some times it is just a minor leak on the pvc pipe or sprinkler head, and other times it can be a major break. I haven't had the pleasure of dealing with any major breaks in quite some time so I guess this year I was due. We had about 10' of shatter pvc pipe in front of #6 green. This was caused by water falling back into a low spot in the irrigation line and than freezing during the winter. In the process of digging up the shattered pipe, we located an isolation valve that had been burried over time. The valve was completely rusted and fell to pieces with the touch of a wrench. We replaced the shattered pipe and valve, installed a valve box, covered the pipe with existing dirt, and will be filling the top 6-8 inching with top soil. Lastly, we will be overseeding the entire area and praying for warmer weather.

PS: I was told by my crew that this type of labor was not much fun when the temperature was in the low to mid 20's!