Blog - Peter Gant

Pegasus: A New Zealand irrigation first

Pegasus Golf Course, the venue of The Pegasus New Zealand Women’s Open, is the first golf course in New Zealand to have valve-in-head sprinklers which are individually controlled by separate stations on every sprinkler, allowing more concise precision control. Learn about the technical features behind this type irrigation system design and all of the benefits behind it.

The course, due to open in December, forms part of the new coastal town of Pegasus, 25 km north of Christchurch. The course layout features 11 lakes and a number of wetland holes, surrounded by waterways, native grasses and incorporates unique 'island' tees. Designing the irrigation system was an exciting and challenging project for Parkland to participate in. We started in November 2007 and installation by Grasslands Ltd was completed in March 2009. Below is a brief overview of the job:

Golf Course & driving range irrigation

1200 Toro valve in head sprinklers on the Golf Course and driving range
The greens have back to back Toro 835S series part circle/ full circle sprinklers which provide flexibility in controlling watering the greens and surrounds
Part circle / full circle Toro 835S sprinklers are installed along the edges of each fairway, providing the ability to water only the fairway or combination of rough and fairway

Tee irrigation

The tees are treated similarly with Toro 725 series part circle / full circle sprinklers which allow for individual watering of the Tee block only or combination of Tee and the surrounds. The benefit of having individually controlled sprinklers is that some sprinklers can be set on full circle and others on part circle which results in savings in water usage, fertilizer use and energy. This is because the Toro SitePro control system recognises the INDIVIDUAL operating arcs of the sprinklers and reduces the runtimes automatically
The automatic pressure regulation in the valve-in-head sprinklers provides the most effective droplet size across the complete golf course and thereby saves water from over pressurisation of the sprinklers, by maintaining a constant set pressure at the base of the sprinkler
The Toro SitePro control system is linked to a weather station on the course which supplies up-to-date information daily to the SitePro control system. The system then processes the data, calculates actual evapotranspiration (ET) and adjusts the runtimes automatically each day so that the minimum amount of water is used
Overall control of the sprinklers is via Toro’s new GDC decoder system, which utilises latching solenoids and ISP decoders which are tested to 20,000 volts-thereby providing the highest surge/lightning protection – twice as resilient as what’s currently in the industry

Pumping irrigation water
The irrigation water is pumped via a continuously pressurised multiple pump station with variable speed control, which results in constant pressure across the large flow changes required and maximum efficiency in energy use. With the pump station being integrated with the SitePro advanced interface that monitors individual pump performance, it has the ability to reschedule the irrigation at a lower flow automatically should one of the pumps go out on a fault. This ensures that the night’s programmed irrigation scheduled is completed.

A well designed and efficiently functioning irrigation system is vital for the creation and maintenance of high quality turf. The investment in sound irrigation systems pays for itself over and over in the long term and makes it much easier for superintendents to use in achieving their desired outcome.