Water hazards

I have been thinking about man-made water hazards at golf courses. Should they be shallow or deep? If they are shallow, one can for sure see the ball, possibly retrieve it and maybe even play it. But if they are deep, is this just a lucrative ploy to make extra income by selling lake balls?

The lakes have to be a certain depth in order to feed them, i.e. water tables, streams, rivers or what ever the water source might be.

Very true No1.
You don't just dig a hole and let it fill up with rain water. I have seen enough of them in my time.
There is real skill in building and maintaining a good flowing water stsyem.

So lorus59 the answer is that it all depends on the courses water table.

Which is incredibly low everwhere at present !!In 20 years this is the dryest Ive seen the course by a long way.
Unfortunately caused some movement on my house extension as weel

Except in some cases, I wouldn't have thought the act of selling lake balls would have made enough money to make it a worthwhile ploy for a course.

At a lot of new courses,the water hazards are an integral part of the irrigation and watering of the course, so would have to be a specific depth to serve there purpose.

At the famous 17th hole at Sawgrass, 120,000 balls per year are retrieved from the water. I wouldn't mind earning $1 per ball.

There was a legal case few years back at a local course where a fella was comin onto the course(public footpath) and helping hiself in the midde of the night.Ruling was that the balls belonged to the course

lorus59 wrote:At the famous 17th hole at Sawgrass, 120,000 balls per year are retrieved from the water. I wouldn't mind earning $1 per ball.

That sounds hard to believe. 120K balls would be 10K balls per month, which is about 330 players a day. So if they play in fours, that would be 82 groups per day where all 4 players put their ball in the water. That's every tee off time from 8am to 9pm, which clearly couldn't happen.

I'd believe they fish 120K balls out of ALL the lakes at Sawgrass, but not just on that hole.

Besides, it's not that hard - it's only about 120 yards isn't it?

I think super will confirm but he and others (doon?) mentioned some of the criteria that have to be met in terms of being granted permits relating to the environment. A course cannot just take all the water it wants or dump lots of waters back into the surrounding area. So as mentioned in order to meet modern irrigation needs and as a place to collect excess water most new courses have to have man made reservoirs dug.

I would doubt very much if the chance to make money from pond balls has much to do with the choice of where to place these water features. In fact in many cases an essential water collection area may be located away from the main routing of the holes. When you see lakes in front of greens or up the side of holes they are placed to be penal and are unlikely to be essential.

As to whether water features in play should be shallow or deep, it depends on the features. If it is a large lake 50-100 yards across it would make little difference either way if you land in the middle of it. If the water feature is a small brook/stream like that in front of the 13th at Augusta then making it shallow with piles of deposited stones/sand could provide the chance of recovery. In the past this particular stream was shallower and provided more chance to escape.

With water I would always prefer it to be of the stream variety and not a forced carry. Although if it is narrow enough like the swilken burn and only comes into play one or two times at most then I could almost live with a forced carry. Is there a more tedious feature than forced carries of large areas of water in game for the everyday player?

Water extraction is one of the main reasons for refusing planning on new courses.
I was advising with a planning application that was withdrawn because a large badger set was in a crucial design area.

George...sent you a PM

...I was advising with a planning application that was withdrawn because a large badger set was in a crucial design area....

From what I heard yesterday, we'll be encouraged to go out and shoot badgers soon! Get that planning application back in!

doon, I got your message thanks and replied.

For the life of me I can never understand why badgers are protected.
There is millions of them.
I suppose the Townies don't go out in the country when it's dark.

The company involved were gutted, it was a good plan but they were a bit short of land so the 'badger boundary' totally badgered them.

George1507 wrote:

lorus59 wrote:At the famous 17th hole at Sawgrass, 120,000 balls per year are retrieved from the water. I wouldn't mind earning $1 per ball.

That sounds hard to believe. 120K balls would be 10K balls per month, which is about 330 players a day. So if they play in fours, that would be 82 groups per day where all 4 players put their ball in the water. That's every tee off time from 8am to 9pm, which clearly couldn't happen.

I'd believe they fish 120K balls out of ALL the lakes at Sawgrass, but not just on that hole.

Besides, it's not that hard - it's only about 120 yards isn't it?

I found that from this website http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-golfballs-are-hit-into-the-water-on-the-17th-of-tpc-sawgrass-annually

Also in Wikipedia it states "It is estimated that over 100,000 balls are retrieved from the surrounding water every year, courtesy of professionals and tourists alike trying their luck."

If even the latter is more legitimate, then it is still a lot of golf balls.

Think we need to take into account that some players will dunk several into the pond.I am willing to travel over exs paid to do a survey.