Golf Course Irrigation Water Supply
Season-long bore water for golf courses, turf farms and sports fields across the Sydney Basin, sized to your peak week and treated for turf.
Irrigation water for the season you actually have to water through
An eighteen hole course in the Sydney Basin can apply tens of megalitres across a summer, and the demand peaks exactly when restrictions bite and mains water is most expensive. A mains connection sized for that peak is expensive to establish and expensive to hold through the months you do not need it. Groundwater matches the demand curve: the aquifer is still there through the dry, it is unaffected by restriction cycles, and the cost per kilolitre falls as volume rises rather than climbing.
Sydney Basin Water designs golf course and turf irrigation supply around the peak week, not an annual average. We size the bore, pump and balance storage against it, prove the yield before committing to it, and treat the water so it will not stain paths and surfaces, block emitters or damage root zones. This page covers golf, turf farms and sports fields specifically; the broader service is described under bore water irrigation.
How a golf course irrigation supply is designed and delivered
AGRONOMY
Irrigated area, greens, tees and fairways, the agronomic programme and the peak monthly demand. Each surface has its own quality tolerance and the design follows those.
PROVE THE YIELD
Test drilling and yield testing establish what the aquifer will sustainably deliver through a dry summer, not just on the day it was drilled.
BUILD
Production bore, headworks, pump set, balance storage and the connection into the existing irrigation mains, built by licensed drillers to the national construction standard.
TREAT AND INTEGRATE
Water tested against turf tolerances, treated where the analysis calls for it, flow verified at design pressure and integrated with your controller and reticulation.
OPERATE
Season-long operation, monitoring and servicing, with compliant extraction metering and the reporting handled on your behalf.
Water quality matters more for turf than people expect
Untreated bore water can cost a course more than it saves. High iron and manganese stain paths, buildings and playing surfaces, and progressively block emitters and sprinkler nozzles. Elevated salinity and sodium damage turf root zones and degrade soil structure over successive seasons. Hardness scales pipework and fittings. None of this shows up in the first month. It shows up in year three, as declining infiltration, patchy surfaces and a reticulation system that needs replacing years early.
We test the source before it is committed to and build the treatment the water actually needs, whether that is iron and manganese removal, filtration for sediment, or blending to bring salinity within tolerance for your grass species and soil type. See bore water treatment for how that is designed. The supply is then delivered to an agreed specification and monitored against it, so the water going onto your greens is the water the agronomy was planned around.
Surfaces we supply across the Sydney Basin
Golf Courses
Greens, tees and fairways irrigated to an agronomic specification, with yield proven against peak summer demand rather than an annual average.
Turf Farms
Production turf kept saleable through the dry with the volume the crop needs, independent of restriction cycles.
Sports Fields and Council Grounds
Playing surfaces kept safe and playable through summer from a source that does not compete with potable demand.
Parkland and Public Open Space
Estates, parkland and large landscaped developments irrigated from an independent source that does not draw on a restricted mains supply.
Nurseries and Horticulture
Consistent irrigation water treated to a quality that protects crop, growing media and emitters, with salinity managed to the tolerance your production requires.
Licensing an irrigation bore for a golf course
Watering a golf course, a turf farm or a sports field is commercial extraction, and it needs a Water Access Licence. Basic landholder rights cover stock and domestic use only. You will need share components in the relevant groundwater source, a water supply works approval for the bore itself, and metering that satisfies the non-urban water metering rules. Annual extraction is capped by the water sharing plan covering that source, so the licence has to be sized against the season, not the average.
Where share components are not immediately available they can often be traded from an existing licence holder within the same source. That process is slow and it is the step most irrigation projects underestimate. We manage it end to end, alongside the hydrogeological work that supports the application, so the scheme is legal, metered and reportable from the day it is commissioned. For the licence pathway in detail, see BG Water Solutions' guide to bore water licences in NSW.