Drained golf greens, athletic fields, and various other turfgrass planting sites are frequently backfilled with specially‐prescribed coarse or very coarse‐textured root growth media to compensate for the effects of the shallow (20 to 50 cm deep), perched water table which forms at the drainage level. These areas are often planted with sod grown on much finer‐textured soils. This study examined the water retention in such nonhomogenous soil profiles following irrigation and drainage.