Revised Maintenance Plan To Provide Desired Bunker Playing Conditions While Awaiting Reconstruction

Bunkers on No. 15 green (photo taken in 1992)

Sometimes we forget how far we have come.  When you look at the picture of the bunkers from 22 years ago above, you realize how golfer's expectations and standards have risen over the last couple of decades in regard to bunker conditions.

Our current 62 bunkers on the course were rebuilt in 1997 removing the brown native sand and installing white "Temisca" sand.  A typical life span for bunkers is 7 to 10 years before the drainage, liners, sand sand shapes need to be renovated to ensure top performance and aesthetics.  When you do the math, our bunkers should have been rebuilt no later than 2007, which puts them 7 years overdue from a total renovation, or two lifespans overdue from rebuilding!

The major overhaul of our bunkers is obviously a priority.  We all know the road project has been a No.1 priority to address, and it doesn't make much sense to do anything major financially on the bunkers until we know what's happening with the road options.  The reconstruction of bunkers will be implemented as part of an approved capital improvement plan that will restore the bunkers back to a Stanley Thompson style once consensus is reached hopefully in the not to distant future.

Our end of life bunkers continue to be maintained to make them as playable as possible for our golfing members until a capital investment plan is approved.  Considering their age, the bunkers could be worse.  During dry periods when deficiencies of the internal drainage isn't being exposed from excessive rainfall, the bunkers are overall more acceptable.

Extra work required to pump out bunkers after rainfall with end-of-life drainage

A lot of sand has been added where needed in the last month to address any sand shortage issues. However in a lot of cases, it's not a matter that no sand is present, but rather that the sand is compacted from being contaminated with silt after many years of washouts and requires more maintenance to keep the sand loosened up.

Bunker sand being added to bunkers using Tycrop MH-400 conveyor attachment

To address this issue this season we have stopped using fan rakes to rake the bases of the bunkers and started using hard rakes to continually loosen up the sand that has a tendency to compact.

New 25" Accuform rakes used by greenstaff for hand-raking bunkers

A couple of weeks ago we purchased several new Accuform 25 inch wide and 6 foot long rakes to carry out this process more efficiently.  The result has been looser sand and more playable bunkers.

The staff are made continually aware of the course standards of the bunkers to maintain sand levels on an ongoing basis trying to maintain 4 inches of sand in the bases, and 2 inches of sand on the bunker faces.  We admit this daily check can be challenging during the busy summer golfing days where there are early tee times and 8:00am shotguns.  But an extra effort is made to try and spend more time correcting sand level issues on off days such as Tuesday's and Thursday's.

Fan rakes are now used on edge raking ONLY as they don't loosen up compacted sand in bunker bases