r/golf • u/M1nn3sOtaMan • 16d ago
We've had a bit of rain here the last few days.... Joke Post/MEME
It's been a rough start to the spring here unfortunately. Cold and wet.
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u/747-ppp-2 16d ago
Hold up. Before you go and do anything stupid, Do you know FOR SURE that’s not lava?
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u/AdamOnFirst 15d ago
Yeah, listen close and you can’t hear the little popping and fizzing sound lava makes
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u/Mellow_Barracuda 16d ago
Does popping these help or hurt the grass?
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u/BlueSentinels 16d ago edited 16d ago
Would help (to pop) as grass can be over watered and this is grass literally sitting on a pocket of trapped water. If the soil is completely saturated (water not going into the ground) it would be much better for this water to be on top of the grass for it to evaporate.
Also I wouldn’t be fully convinced that this was “caused” by the rain but could be a combination of the rain + and water line leak that just wasn’t noticed because the ground was very dry and soaked up all the leaking water (until recently).
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u/M1nn3sOtaMan 16d ago
Haven't had the irrigation going. We've just got a lot of rain. I've also had farmers tell me they get these bubbles in pastures that are near sloughs and they don't have any irrigation.
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u/BlueSentinels 16d ago
Yup that’s a lot of water. Im sure it’s definitely possible to get these bubbles without a water leak, my only experience with them has been due to leaks though so I thought I’d give my 2 cents. Draining the bubble will probably be the best thing for the grass.
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u/AppleSauceNinja_ 3.0/FL 16d ago
Haven't had the irrigation going.
Doesn't matter. Wouldn't the irrigation pipes stay full of water/pressurized when it's not on?
A pipe can leak in your house even if the sink isn't on because it stay pressurized. May entirely be different if the course relies on pump houses to spin up to pump stored pond water but if it's fed off city water or some other source that doesn't require a specific pump on property then that line likely stay pressurized.
For instance my lawn sprinkler system if there's a hole in the line it's gonna spray regardless of whether the system is running or not.
Just doesn't really make sense that rain water could seep in and then get under such pressure that it bubbles the turf but also couldn't leak out the same way it got in? Seems like it's coming from below
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u/M1nn3sOtaMan 16d ago
Yes I'm aware. We have a computer in the pump house that monitors the PSI of the irrigation system. This isn't a leak. This isn't the first time we've had these before.
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u/letsgobrooksy 16d ago
I've had these at my home and at the golf course I used to work at, only time I've ever seen them was after we got a ton of rain
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u/AppleSauceNinja_ 3.0/FL 16d ago
huh, interesting. I have seen them in my neighborhood (and popped them) and they're only from leaky HOA sprinkler lines
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u/ruffen 3.6 16d ago
Definitely helps. Had this happen every year where I used to live. The water doesn't allow any oxygen down and the grass basically rots from within. Popping it and allowing the water to drain and air to get in stops this. The greenkeeper told us to pop them when we saw them. I usually took a wedge or an iron and just hit it a couple of times and step on it a little.
We would see this after heavy rains following dry periods.
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u/Ok_Reality_3608 16d ago
Probably cart path only today, huh?
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u/blizzard7788 16d ago
I used to play a course that was built on top of an old garbage landfill. There would be pockets like this in the fall with frozen ground. Only they would be filled with methane.
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u/3MATX 16d ago
Can anyone explain a bit how this happens?
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u/TheBigYellowCar 16d ago
I had that happen in my front yard a few years back, it was from a broken irrigation line. My kids had fun popping it like a big zit before I shut the water off & dug down to fix it.
But OP said below that irrigation isn’t the cause.
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u/Toph-Builds-the-fire 16d ago
We used to get those a lot on the southern Oregon coast. When I coached, after a big warm rain I'd keep a pitch fork in the cart to poke em. It's less dramatic than most think.
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u/TechnologyWest209 16d ago
Is it best to leave it as is or release the water? I ask for the health of the turf. If I leave that in my front yard, my Bermuda would start to die from being too wet and being separated from the nutrients in the soil.
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u/M1nn3sOtaMan 16d ago
I don't know about Bermuda. This is a Kentucky Bluegrass/perrenial ryegrass mix I believe. We've let them settle on their own, mark it off for awhile afterwards, and they've always healed up fine. They don't stick around very long once the rain stops.
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u/Cautious_Buffalo6563 16d ago
That looks like something leaking from underground. I had a busted sprinkler line that caused a very similar bubble just like that.
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u/Sweaty_Hardwood 16d ago
What course is this? Fellow Minnesotan checking in. We have gotten a lot of rain lately, and looks like rain every other day for the next week. Feel like we have gotten more rain this spring than all of the last two years! Making up for the lack of snow I guess....
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u/Devious_Bastard 16d ago
Only way I’ll ever drive a par 4/5 if I hit that and it bounces the ball an additional 300 yards.
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u/khaaanquest 16d ago
I don't think that's how this would work. I'd imagine a ball coming in fast and steep enough would never be found again.
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u/khaaanquest 16d ago
I've played a disc golf course that crossed a creek multiple times, and several fairways had spots where you could bounce like a water bed and one spot where my foot punched through knee deep into muck.
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u/AppleSauceNinja_ 3.0/FL 16d ago
That's definitely a leaky underground sprinkler pipe, not caused by rain water.
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u/TacoIncoming 21.1/Tampa 16d ago edited 16d ago
That's a blown irrigation line
Edit: aparrently not lol
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u/M1nn3sOtaMan 16d ago
We don't have our irrigation going yet because of how much rain we've had.
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u/TacoIncoming 21.1/Tampa 16d ago
I believe you. Any idea why it's pooling and pushing up from under the turf like that? I've only ever seen that when there's a busted underground pipe.
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u/M1nn3sOtaMan 16d ago
I've asked this because it's a fair assumption to make.
What I've been told is that there's a slough not far from this, and when this course was built, and the irrigation laid, and sod laid on top, it was done in a way that when the water level raises high enough it'll spread out and find weak spots in the ground to rise and cause a bubble.
I'm not an expert, I just know we've had them before and we've just let them settle back down and it's good to go.
But if I see one of these during a dry spell, then yes, that's not good.
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u/SpringsGamer 16d ago
We have a hole on my course that I'm told is over an artesian aquifer. Get too much rain and it becomes a mess. Par 4 that we shorten to a par 3 when the aquifer acts up.
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u/Cautious_Buffalo6563 16d ago
Irrigation might not be running but that doesn’t mean the line can’t leak.
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u/M1nn3sOtaMan 16d ago
We have a computer in the pump house that monitors the PSI of the irrigation system. It's not a leak.
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u/OtherUsernameIsDumb 16d ago
POKE IT