Goodbye Whiskers... Hello New Yardage Markers

They are here!! The new sprinkler caps have arrived and are being installed as this post is being written. By day's end, we will have all 18 holes completed (nearly 600 caps) assuming the looming precipitation doesn't turn for the worst and run us off the course.

The new caps are similar to the previous ones, with bright white numbering. One difference being the new numbers are slightly smaller due to the smaller size of the new sprinkler heads.

Here is a brief overview of how the yardage markers are positioned on the golf course.

• All fairways have 3 rows of yardage markers; 1 up the center and 1 on each side of the fairway. There is only a few exceptions to this due to varying fairway widths where there may only be 2 markers across (e.g. narrow section in the middle of 11) or as many as 4 (the wide section on 3 by the 150 yard mark).
  
• The side row markers will be located on the head closest to the center of the fairway; which may occur directly on the fairway, or in many cases, at the fairway/rough interface.
• Par 3's - Around tees and from the beginning of each fairway to the last approach heads before the greens. (NOTE: A few tees (e.g. 2 forward tee) have different sprinkler head models and require specialized caps. These will be installed in the near future.)
  
• Par 4's - Roughly 250 yards to the last approach heads before the greens.
• Par 5's - Roughly 300 yards to the last approach heads before the greens.

An example where the head closest to the center of the fairway was given the yardage marker.

As we mentioned in an earlier post this spring, the GPS data equipment ($30k+) used to map out yardages is accurate to the sub-millimeter. Rest assured, if you are standing on a sprinkler head marked 100 yards - it is exactly 100 yards to the center of the green. The GPS data not only gets distances precise, but it can map the center of any area, including our irregular greens, to a pin point.

The new sprinkler head spacing is now closer than the old layout which has increased the total number of heads on the fairways. Because of this, there are an additional 250+ (about 14 more per hole) yardage markers in the fairways which should make things easier for you.

Now go out there and dial in those approach shots!!

The Whisker’s Are Back

You probably recall all the whiskers in the fairways that were used to mark sprinkler locations during the irrigation installation process last season. They are small, wispy, colored markers.

Until the remaining few holes of the irrigation project are completed and all heads are in place (at which time we can accurately measure yardages from the heads to the green centers), we will be using the whiskers for measuring purposes.

The whiskers will be placed on the approximate center line of the fairway and color coded as follows:

RED - 100 Yards
WHITE - 150 Yards
BLUE - 200 Yards

One of the temporary 200 yard wiskers.

These markers should last for several weeks or until we can measure, order, and receive the new engraved sprinkler caps.

One thing that will help you now and into the future is this fact:

The sprinklers that run down the center line of the fairways are all very close to 20 yards apart.
The only locations where this is skewed a little is just before the last dogleg on holes #3 and #11, because these areas are wider than typical fairway widths and additional heads were needed to provide proper coverage. Due to this, there is not a center line row in these locations.

FYI – The heads in these wider areas are triangularly spaced at 60’ (20 yards). So if you can remember your Pythagorean Theorem, you can get your exact yardage!