After many years of use, the golf course's irrigation system, dating back to the 1980s, was beginning to show its age. Installer Arrosage Concept carried out a complete renovation of the course's irrigation system between October 2023 and April 2024, expanding the lake's capacity, replacing the old main pipes, and installing a state-of-the-art centralized management system.
Saint Germain en Laye is located in the Île-de-France suburbs near Versailles and eleven miles from the centre of Paris. In the top twenty of Golf World's top 100 in Continental Europe, its two golf courses have hosted many international competitions including the French Open in 1985.
Designed by Harry Colt 1922 and built in the early part of the 20th century, the Golf de Saint Germain 18-hole course is predominantly flat with some man-made elevations and over a hundred bunkers, meandering through the forest of Saint Germain en Laye. The second, nine-hole Genets course has gently sloping greens.
After many years the previous 1980s irrigation system began to fail. Old sprinklers couldn’t provide the irrigation coverage required, areas of the course were missed and not watered, and spare parts became almost impossible to obtain. Before making the decision to renovate and to see the latest Rain Bird irrigation systems in operation, Saint Germain’s Greenkeeper Jean Eric Simonnot visited golf courses in the UK, Italy and also Golf de Joyenval in France, which had completed an irrigation system renovation in 2020.
Irrigation Consultant Frédéric Quillien, of K Consult was appointed two years before works began on site, helping the club define how water consumption could be reduced while ensuring high quality playing surfaces. He completed hydraulic studies to support the application for a water agency subsidy which was granted and part-financed the project.
Photography - Copyright Golf de Saint Germain
Contractor Arrosage Concept carried out the complete irrigation system renovation between October 2023 and April 2024, extending the capacity of the lake, replacing the previous main pipes and Rain Bird Nimbus ll decoder system. 1,200 new Rain Bird rotors have been installed: The 952IC, 752IC and 5004SS models with PESB IC valve rotors have been installed on the tees. The course has a classic, modern two-row fairway configuration with a back-to-back configuration on greens. The course opted for a block system configuration with small Rain Bird 5004 Series SAM and stainless steel rotors for the tees.
“CirrusPRO™ offers much more flexibility in terms of golf course management. With digital irrigation management, there’s no need to be in the office on the computer”
The previous main pipes and Rain Bird Nimbus II decoder system have been replaced with a Rain Bird IC System™ featuring CirrusPRO™ Central Control software. The Rain Bird IC system provides peace of mind, as the rotors can be monitored and controlled individually, enabling any issues to be identified quickly for efficient troubleshooting before going out on the course. CirrusPRO™ offers much more flexibility in terms of golf course management. With digital irrigation management, there’s no need to be in the office on the computer as the system can be accessed from anywhere, on any device – tablet, computer or smartphone.
Quillian also helped with tendering, with contractor negotiations and by providing detailed data for the CirrusPRO set-up, providing tailor-made tools for weather analysis, disease forecast and dollar spot risk and pump station feedback. The course has its own weather station and uses manual ET access, and they also have Rain Can Pause/Adjust irrigation, should it rain during the irrigation cycle.
Greenkeeper Jean Eric Simonnot explains, “Seeing how CirrusPRO was being used elsewhere was a great help, convincing me that it was what we were looking for. Having Nimbus previously and being involved with Rain Bird already made the transitioning to the new software simple. The whole Rain Bird team was very professional and supported us throughout the installation. Having the ability to separately adjust and monitor the watering on greens, fairways and tees gives us uniform coverage and we are using a lot less water. Rain Bird rotors are easy to repair and maintenance is straightforward. CirrusPRO is easy to use, very intuitive, and simple. It’s continually evolving, with GSP always available to support us. Why didn't we do it sooner?! “
