Introduction

Jon Jennings was smitten with Shinnecock Hills Golf Club from the very first time he first played it in 1995. “I just fell in love with it,” he says with a smile. “I was captured by it. Its beauty, its openness, the grass, the texture, the architecture. Everything is just so special.”

Now, as Jennings puts a capstone on his 15th and final season at a course many consider to be the world’s best, he looks back and knows that he’s done the right things for the legendary windswept grounds his team manages.

“Shinnecock is a special place,” adds assistant superintendent Peter Barnaby, “and with that comes a certain level of expectation.”

As the club’s exclusive golf irrigation provider, Rain Bird Golf has been a part of meeting those high expectations at Shinnecock for decades. The course’s agronomy team has come to rely on Rain Bird for consistent water delivery, mobile access, fast solutions, and innovations like CirrusPRO and low-angle heads that defy the winds to put irrigation where they need it most.

Targeted golf course irrigation technology helps conquer the wind.

“It’s one thing to get the product right for one day or one week,” says assistant Russ Bolarinho, “but it’s another thing to get the product right every single day, day after day. Here at Shinnecock, if we get our watering program off by a degree just one day, we’re going to see the effects of it for the next two or three days. So every single night we need to make sure that the water is getting where it needs to be. Rain Bird and CirrusPRO for us have been game-changers.”

One challenge: integrating an older system on the main course with a newer Rain Bird IC system on the club’s short course. Jennings is a fan: “It has saved us a lot of time because CirrusPRO unifies our 20-year-old satellites on the golf course seamlessly. It’s simply amazing.”

Fighting the wind and its impact on soil moisture is the team’s biggest challenge, and it’s a constantly shifting target. But Rain Bird was there with a solution. “The wind has affected our heads immensely so we started using low-angle heads,” says Bolarinho. “It has changed the way we water the entire course.”

Because so many holes are framed with native rough, the team works hard to prevent water from drifting into those areas. “Having low-angle heads that cut through the wind (allows us to) drop the water out to where we want,” Jennings says. “It makes a big difference.”

One CirrusPRO dashboard now tracks all the critical pump irrigation data.

The Shinnecock team has also collaborated with Rain Bird and Spectrum Technologies to collect and use soil moisture data more effectively. “Being able to collect data and take the soil moisture readings in the morning is infinitely easier now,” says Barnaby. The information is delivered quickly to the central computer and is immediately available to the management team.

Information from a their pump station is also integrated into the team’s dashboard thanks to a recent CirrusPRO update allowing pump integration. “Having that pump integration feature in our central computer and being able to understand what’s going on with our pump station while sitting in our office saves us a lot of time,” says Barnaby. “To be able to pull that data right up at your desktop is extremely important.”

The club’s par 3 course now uses the Rain Bird IC system and the change has been dramatic. “We don’t see dry spots anymore,” says Bolarinho. “We know immediately that there’s a problem before it starts to show up in the field.” The team says it has dramatically cut down the time spent on problems or repairs. “It runs so flawlessly we don’t even think about it,” adds Jennings.