Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on April 7, 2023.
Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. If you’re watching the 2023 Masters, you already know the weather is gross. And maybe you’re wondering how golf can carry on in the rain. No worries, because we’re here to help.
Going into the 2023 Masters weekend, players and fans surely knew what to expect because if the weather remotely resembled the projected forecast from earlier this week, it was going to be a wet one.
The wind and rain had an impact on the tournament during Friday’s second round before play was briefly suspended multiple times thanks to inclement weather.
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Due to inclement weather conditions, Augusta National Golf Club was forced to suspend play at 3:07 p.m. EDT and, subsequently, evacuated the grounds.
Further updates will be announced once available. #themasters
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 7, 2023
So what happens if the weather at Augusta National stays terrible all weekend? What if it’s just raining a lot, but the weather isn’t bad enough to stop playing? How can anyone play the course after rain?
We’re here to break it all down.
So what if it rains a lot and the course is soggy and gross?
Luckily for players and fans, Augusta National’s greens are set up to successfully handle copious amounts of rain. But you wouldn’t necessarily know it just by looking at the course.
The solution to ensure the course is still playable after rain is SubAir, a high-tech accessory for standard drainage systems, per Golf.com. The drainage system is just mostly hidden and unnoticeable.
This dated video from 2010 provides a visual:
How does SubAir work?
As Golf.com explained in a 2019 breakdown, SubAir works “to manage and moderate soil aeration, moisture and temperature” to keep the greens playable. It has seven crucial elements to make it work: an intake/exhaust pipe, an air flow dual valve, a control panel, an ambient air temperature sensor, a vault, an air/water separator valve and a blower.
Essentially, as Golfweek detailed earlier this week, the SubAir accessory functions like a vacuum but for water, pulling water off the green and into the drainage system to, well, drain.
OK, but how does it actually work?
The primary piece seems to be the intake/exhaust pipe, and here’s how Golf.com described its function:
In the system’s pressure mode, air is drawn through an intake/exhaust pipe, where it’s subsequently propelled through drain pipes and into the soil, through which it travels before being expelled into the atmosphere. In vacuum mode, air is pulled from the surface through the soil and into the drain pipes, along with any non-capillary water. (This removes water 36 times faster than Mother Nature can, minimizing downtime and turf damage.) The water flows through an air/water separator to drain out through the low-end drainage system, as it normally would; the air flows out the exhaust.
But what about the other elements that help keep the course playable?
The air flow dual valve fully seals the drainage system to create a vacuum or manipulate the pressure, Golf.com noted.
The control panel, when in pressure mode, is all about automatically injecting fresh air daily into the soil, while the air temperature sensor manage’s the soil temperature in relation to the weather and extending the grass-growing season.
The air/water separator valve — when in vacuum mode, as opposed to pressure mode — do exactly that. The air exits through the exhaust pipe while the water heads in another direction. More via Golfweek:
When the SubAir system is used to pull a lot of water off greens, supplemental pumps and drainage mechanisms can be added to pull the water farther away from the green and release it in areas away from play.
The blower directs airflow, and the vault just holds onto the sensor and blower.
Anything else?
You might hear the SubAir system at work. More from Golfweek:
When the pumps are running, they create a dull, humming sound that is reminiscent of what you hear inside a plane when the engines are running.
