Hillside Golf Course

Hillside Golf Course

Situated on the Southport coast, Hillside Golf Course is a magnificent links course combining challenging holes with beautiful surroundings.

With the existing irrigation system becoming unreliable and costly to maintain, and with a requirement to irrigate additional Fairways, the club invited tenders for a replacement system, with LS Systems Ltd winning the contract. 

A GPS survey was undertaken, and from this the design process began. The objective was to provide a system that would accurately irrigate the Greens, Approaches, Fairways, Tees, and additional high-wear areas whilst making the most efficient use of water resources, and power. Special consideration had to made of the fact that many areas of the course are designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and LS Systems Ltd liaised closely with the club and with English Nature to minimise the environmental impact of the construction phase.

The resulting system comprised of 25KM of pipe ranging from 50mm up to 125mm, and over 35KM of control cable, all installed using LS Systems Ltd specialist Case moleplough unit. The moleplough enables pipe & cable to be installed without the need for trenches, thus minimising damage to the course.

A total of 385 Toro electric valves in head sprinklers were used to irrigate the Greens, Approaches, and Fairways, and over 350 smaller Toro sprinklers were installed on the Tees.

A computer based control system was installed in the Course Managers office; in addition to switching the irrigation on and off, the controller also records each irrigation cycle to enable the user to build a historical record of water usage.

The purpose built plant room houses the powerful variable speed twin pump station that distributes water around the network of pipe. Using the latest technology, variable speed drives control the pumps at their most efficient level which both saves considerable amounts of electricity, and enhances the hydraulic harmony of the system.

LS Systems Ltd continue to maintain the system, and are currently installing irrigation to the newly constructed Championship Tees.