Paris, France: Saint Germain en Laye is located in the Île-de-France suburbs near Versailles and 11 miles from the centre of Paris. In the top 20 of Golf World’s top 100 in Continental Europe, its two golf courses have hosted many international competitions, including the French Open in 1985.

Designed by Harry Colt in 1922 and built in the early part of the 20th century, the Golf de Saint Germain 18-hole course is predominantly flat with some man-made elevations and over 100 bunkers, meandering through the forest of Saint Germain en Laye. The second nine-hole Genets course has gently sloping greens.

After many years, the previous 1980s irrigation system began to fail. Old sprinklers couldn’t provide the irrigation coverage required, areas of the course were missed and not watered, and spare parts became almost impossible to obtain.

Before making the decision to renovate and to see the latest Rain Bird irrigation systems in operation, Saint Germain’s Greenkeeper Jean Eric Simonnaut visited golf courses in the United Kingdom, Italy and also Golf de Joyenval in France, which had completed an irrigation system renovation in 2020.

Irrigation Consultant Frédéric Quillien, of K Consult was appointed two years before works began on site, helping the club define how water consumption could be reduced while ensuring high quality playing surfaces. He completed hydraulic studies to support the application for a water agency subsidy which was granted and part-financed the project.

Contractor Arrosage Concept carried out the complete irrigation system renovation between October 2023 and April 2024, extending the capacity of the lake, replacing the previous main pipes and Rain Bird Nimbus ll decoder system with a Rain Bird IC System with CirrusPRO Central Control software and 1200 new Rain Bird rotors: 952IC, 752IC and 5004SS with PESB IC valve rotors on tees.

Quillien also provided detailed data for the CirrusPRO set-up and tailor-made tools for weather analysis, disease forecast, dollar spot risk and pump station feedback.

Simonnaut said: “Seeing how CirrusPRO was being used elsewhere was a great help, convincing me that it was what we were looking for. Having Nimbus previously and being involved with Rain Bird already made the transitioning to the new software simple.

“The whole Rain Bird team was very professional and supported us throughout the installation. Having the ability to separately adjust and monitor the watering on greens, fairways and tees gives us uniform coverage and we are using a lot less water.

“Rain Bird rotors are easy to repair and maintenance is straightforward. CirrusPRO is easy to use, very intuitive, and simple. It’s continually evolving, with GSP always available to support us. Why didn’t we do it sooner?”

*Rain Bird is an Executive Member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation.