Tee rebuilding-Part 1-project overview

Part 1 of a series

Tee rebuilding includes the removal of an old tee and the construction of a  new tee in its place.  It’s time to change the height, width, length, irrigation, cart path, alignment, sod and anything else you want to make your life easier.

This post will discuss construction of a square tee box. If you want to build a free-form tee box, other posts will discuss this process.

Plan the project by examining the current tee. Look for recyclable materials. Assume that the sod is not reusable. Check the irrigation heads and determine if they will function on the new tee. The old irrigation pipe and wire will be removed or buried ; don’t try to recycle it. Valves and valve boxes can be reused. Check the existing tee topsoil. It can be used to surface, or plate, the tee slopes. The fill will be reusable.

Lay out the four corners of the new tee.  If the tee will be raised a few feet from the existing grade, use wooden stakes with a suitable length that allow for 12″ exposure from the tee final grade.

If you’re building a tee with 2 feet or more fill, use 1″ galvanized pipe. The galvanized pipe works best for tall tees because you can add sections with threaded couplers. Hammer the 1″ pipe into the ground by hitting an attached galvanized coupler. It’s easier to replace the coupler than the pipe. Try to save the pipe threads; you may need them later.

The staking and aligning process includes the following:

• Find the fairway center line. For par-3′s, use the center of the green. Establish a reference point by sighting a fixed point in the background. You can also park a golf car in this location.
• Determine the center line of the tee; the mid-point between the two forward ends of the tee.
• Construct a T-shaped guide with 1 1/2″ PVC pipe . This guide will consist of a straight pipe 4 feet long. At the mid-point, attach another 4′ pipe at an exact 90 degree angle. Use a PVC slip tee fitting for this connection.The finished guide will look like a big T.
• Line up the T-guide with the proposed forward edge of the tee, then adjust the perpendicular pipe so it faces the reference point on the fairway. You should stand behind the tee to sight the T-guide while an associate adjusts the line.
• After the forward edge is perpendicular to the fairway or green reference point, install the two forward stakes.

Add two rear stakes. The four stakes will define the flat tee surface. Check for squareness by doing the following:

• Measure the distance between the front right and rear right tee stakes. Write it down in a field book. Do the same for the left front and rear stakes. Adjust the rear stakes if needed to make both sides of the tee box equal.
• Measure the distance between the front right stake and the rear left stake. This is called the diagonal length. Measure the distance between the front left stake and the rear right stake.  Adjust the rear stakes to make the diagonal distance equal. The front stakes are now aligned, and they should not be moved. If you do move them, be sure to realign.

Next post in this series: Tee fill calculations