Irrigation project under way
A significant irrigation upgrade project has been under way at the Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club course.
“This is the most major irrigation upgrade we’ve done since the mid-1970s,” club general manager Leo Barber said. “We’re upgrading all the pipes, mainlines, laterals and fairway sprinklers.”
The project has been going since 2016 and has been done in three stages so far as funding has become available.
“When we first looked at it the project cost was significant and beyond our means so we broke it down into smaller chunks, and with the use of voluntary labour and doing it ourselves we’ve been able to bite off little pieces.
“This section that we’re doing now [holes 17 and 18] will probably put us at about 65 per cent of the course done.”
Mr Barber said the upgrade will improve playing conditions, provide less interruption for golfers, better use of staff time, and importantly, irrigation reliability.
“With 40-year-old pipework there’s been issues with splitting and busting . . . you might have a break which takes the whole system out and sometimes that could be for a day or two and in middle of summer that’s pretty difficult.”
The upgrade enables the fairways to be irrigated [with bore water] automatically via software control instead of manual control.
“This will actually ensure less water is applied as the software allows for efficiency and more targeted application.”