Bunkers – the design and maintenance relationship

NOT choosing the correct architect can cost a club money, waste valuable resources and end up being a frustrating exercise.

Decision-makers in a club must always consider the fact that even a competent golf course architect’s choice of bunker style can impact on a course’s strategy, its playability, overall aesthetics and most importantly on its future maintenance practices & presentation.

Strategy

When designing a golf course, bunkers are just one weapon in the architect’s arsenal to challenge the golfer. However, all too often, less imaginative architects tend to rely too much on bunkers to add strategy to a hole.

Architects not adopting a “less is more” philosophy can result in too many & oftentimes inappropriately large bunkers being introduced onto a course.

In Naas GC, the primary focus of our MasterPlan (currently being implemented by DAR Golf and supervised by the Club’s Superintendent Dave Behan), was to:

• First, reduce the total number of bunkers (hence cut the sand area to be maintained),
• Secondly, investigate how many could be converted to easily maintainable grass bunkers,
• Thirdly, agree on a bunker style with the Club & Superintendent that was more in keeping with a course of its age.

Before the implementation of the MasterPlan Naas GC had 65 bunkers and a sand area of 6,098m². Whilst we only plan to reduce the final number of bunkers by 10, the overall sand area will be decreased by over 54% to 2,806m². This will be achieved without impacting negatively on the strategy of the course with better bunker orientation and placement.

Also, just by converting 11 bunkers to grass we will shrink the overall sand area of the bunkers by 1,047m² (a significant 17% reduction)!

Style

Another consideration of the bunker renovation programme element of the MasterPlan was to determine the style of bunker which would best suit the objectives of the club.

Our brief was to reduce the financial & manpower burden the existing bunker style imposed on the Club. It was also considered important that the style chosen should reflect the age of the course – Naas GC was founded in 1896. In the end, a more classical style of bunker (albeit constructed with contemporary construction materials & practices) was agreed upon. This classical style bunkers will result in bunkers of reduced and varying sizes, that have lower sand lines, different lip edging depths and will be lined with DAR Golf’s Sportsbond product.

This more traditional style of bunkering results in better definition of the bunkers off the tee. They are individually hand-crafted, uniquely shaped and sized to promote a greater degree of variety.

Particular attention was paid to the angle of the bunker contouring. In doing so we were able to maximise the shadowing affect created by early morning and late evening sunlight. This helps to create dramatic ground surface relief and better definition. The varying lip edging depth is achieved by using a range of 3 to 8 revetted fescue sods and this results in a “grass down” sand line affect. This, along with properly designed surface water flow management (perhaps the single most common architectural flaw we see) dramatically reduces “wash down” experiences.

Playability

Good design should also take into account how the bunker style will play. Architects have a duty to ensure that they design bunkers in a way that there is ease of access and egress from bunkers. Bunkers should not be so deep that they cannot be drained or, that they slow up play.

Special attention should be taken to ensure that the best sand in terms of colour, particle size and drainage porosity is selected. These characteristics will affect drainage line longevity, playability and aesthetics.

One should also ensure a correct uniform depth of sand is placed in all bunkers. Too little may result in player injury on striking a bunker base and excessive “thinning” of shots out of the bunkers – too much and players will complain of plugged lies.

Aesthetics

This aspect is often the first thing overlooked when time schedules and budgets are tight but this need not be the case.

How bunkers look is a very important factor for an architect.

Good architecture is about form and function. Bunkers need to look well, perform correctly and if allocated sufficient time (during the construction phase) they can massively impact on the visual definition & character of a golf course.

At the design stage it costs an architect nothing to ensure that all bunkers on the course are styled in the same way. This uniformity of appearance gels with our mind’s subconscious which is always looking for patterns in an effort to make sense of our world around us.

This human characteristic is not left in the car park by the golfer and as architects it is this aspect of a golfer’s interaction with the golf course that we try and tap into. Creating a course that both plays well and which is also “pleasing to the eye”, that looks like “it has been there forever” or which “blends seamlessly into its surrounds” is the ultimate goal of every architect.

Again the size, the chosen style, the number of bunkers and the shadows they create will have a bearing on the overall aesthetic value of a course.

Maintenance

In the very end all of what has been already mentioned above will influence the future maintenance practices of the greenkeeping staff.

Bunkers poorly designed can have detrimental effects on:

• Mowing Practices
  If external grass slopes are too steep or if “fingers” into bunkers are too narrow it may be necessary to flymo these grassed areas thus adding to maintenance costs.
  (Whilst the bunker style chosen at Naas GC does require a certain amount of strimming with the reduced sand area the overall maintenance required for bunkers is less than it was before).
• Edging Methods
  If bunker edges are revetted, deep or “grass down” then extra man-hours will be required to maintain these in good all-year round condition.
  Revetted edges are particularly maintenance heavy as they normally require replacing every 5-10 years.
  Whereas, steep “grass down” faces and deeper bunkers will probably need to be flymo’d or strimmed.

• Drainage Issues
  If there is inadequate drainage installed within the bunker and/or if there is surface water entering the bunker from its surrounds then there will be continuous wash-down issues.
  Apart from the frustrating practice of pushing the sand back up onto the bunker face there is a potential threat to the bunker internal drainage system.
  When the sand of the bunker becomes contaminated with surrounds organic fines these can enter and then clog the drainage pipe.
• Grass Species Selection
  If the bunker surrounds are to be planted with a tall fescue for instance then, there could be potential maintenance implications.
  In order to facilitate faster speeds of play or to ensure the grass appears to be maintained it may be necessary to thin out the base of the sward. This would allow for balls to be found quicker and make the areas around the bunkers look tidier. Either way it would require more maintenance personnel attention.

• Raking Procedures
  Bunker sizes and ease of access are the two main factors that determine whether a club utilizes a mechanical bunker rake or indeed hand rakes their bunkers.
  The mechanical bunker rake can cause excessive “wear & tear” where it enters and exits a bunker especially if these is only one or narrow access points.
  Obviously, if an architect makes bunkers too large then, there is no other option open to the club but to use a mechanical rake as hand raking would be wasteful use of manpower & resources.
  With smaller sized bunkers at least there may be a choice and hand raking may be possible for special events without standards dropping elsewhere on the course.

Architect’s Checklist

So what should a Superintendent ask of an architect appointed by the club to overhaul its course bunkering?

Well here are some suggestions of ours:

• Where have you completed such a bunker renovation programme in the past? Then, do due diligence and call the course superintendent for a recommendation.
• What style of bunkering do you envisage for our facility?
• Have you considered the maintenance costs of this style?
• How steep will the sand bunker faces be?
• What is your opinion on bunker liners?
• Will you be ensuring surface water flow will be directed away from the sand area of the bunkers?
• What amount of drainage do you normally specify?
• What type of edging do you see being implemented?
• Will I need to flymo or strim bunker surrounds?

Once you have received your answers to questions of this nature, you will be in a better position to, inform your Course Committee of the maintenance practices that will be required to, present the course, in the manner in which the members have become accustomed to.

By enquiring into the architect’s vision for the course at an early stage you, may be able to influence the final outcome and thereby, inherit a course that is easier to maintain with the resources at your disposal.

Constant communication between the architect and the Superintendent is vital to the successful completion of any project and, especially so, when it is a renovation project of an existing course.

Remember our work as architects can only look as good as greenkeeping staff can make it look.

It is therefore, in everyone’s best interest to work together and deliver to your members or your clients a final product that matches their expectations and standards.

This article originally appeared in Greenside, the magazine of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of Ireland, October 2016.

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