8/17/2017 2:08 PM
At the Midwest Regional Turf Foundation conference in 2016 there was a several hour panel presentation of the different methods. Dan Grogan at The Sagamore Club in Noblesville, IN has been installing capillary concrete and loves it. Kyle Callahan at Victoria National in Newburgh, IN has been installing the Matrix system, porous asphalt, with success. John Thompson at Sycamore Hills in Fort Wayne, IN has installed the Better Billy Bunker and it has done him well. I bet they would be good guys to talk with.
One question I have is in northern areas, how will they hold up with multiple freeze thaw cycles every winter? I would think the pore spaces would hold water until they reach capacity and that water will freeze and busting up the drainage layer just like our wonderful roads. Another is how much fun will it be rebuilding them in the future? I have also heard of some bunkers with the newer methods creating a perched water table and eventually growing algae.
We have been redoing ours a few every season over the last 14 years and have completed about 35 so far. We put nothing on the bottom but we have been lowering the sod and eliminating the splashed sand faces. We have also tried to make the bottoms as flat as we can. This has greatly reduced the washouts, contamination, and associated labor after hard rain events. We expanded the minimal drainage in each bunker with multiple laterals similar the USGA greens drainage. Our Facebook page shows several. Bear Slide Golf Club Grounds Maintenance.
Over my 37 years in the biz I have rebuilt a few hundred bunkers and have yet to use a liner or anything else. I simply haven't had the financial resources to do so. As mentioned above the most important factor is reducing the amount of water entering the bunkers from the surrounding area.
Chris Thuer, CGCS, Bear Slide Golf Club, Cicero, IN