Course Reno VS New Irrigation
Just looking to see opinions and which should come first. Our club has a brand new master plan that hasn’t begun to be implemented yet. The plan calls for tree removals, a bunker renovation, cart path work/movement, tee box additions and movement, adjustment of fairway lines, and potentially a new short game area. We are also in desperate need of a new irrigation system. Our current system is very undersized by today’s standards. Most of our PVC is 50-60 years old and we have hydraulic irrigation around all greens. The club recently invested in and installed a brand new MCI pump station which gives our team some peace of mind and we also have new Rainbird satellites on order for install this fall. We currently have a double row tee and fairway system with hydraulic heads around greens and plenty of supplemental rough irrigation. Roughly 660 sprinkler heads total at the moment.
Should I push our club to invest in the new irrigation system BEFORE getting too deep into a full scale golf course renovation? Obviously the tree work and bunker renovation could be low hanging fruit, but I worry about moving tee boxes and shifting fairway lines before we have an updated system. I just want to make sure we are going about things in the correct order as both of these projects will inevitably not be cheap. Any insight or ideas others can share would be greatly appreciated! Really looking forward to better control and support in the near future with our updated satellites! Thanks!