Bunker Renovation Cancel The title field is required!

1. Ryan Otto

   

   0 posts
   
   3/20/2012 1:03 PM

   I'm at a course with a small budget that is going to renovate, in house, our 14 bunkers. What is everyones stance on bunker liners? For the most part my edges aren't that steep. Also what type of sand do you suggest. I've looked at sand that is basically like topdressing as far as particle size, shape, and texture. Any thoughts or examples would be greatly appreciated.

   
   
   
   
2. Keith Fellenstein

   

   0 posts
   
   3/21/2012 10:03 AM

   Not a big fan of liners except when sand is flashed up on steep slopes. Personally, I don't like liners on the floor because even if you hand rake, there are times when you may want to put a mechanical rake in them and you run the risk of snagging the liner. I havent ever worked with the spray on materials. more angular sands (manufactured) pack better and can be worth the extra cost, more spherical sands (mined )tend to stay loose and may lead to fried egg lies and complaints. Best advice I got from an architect when choosing sand, dont put it in your practice bunker and think that is a good evaluation--find a course that is using the sand you are considering and go play it. Bunkers can gobble up budgets, evaluate the strategic value and size of each bunker, eliminate as many as are reasonable, keep size and severity manageable for what you have to work with, over engineering the drainage is never a bad thing, the right turf on surrounds is critical (in my part of the country zoysia works great). good luck.

   
   
   
   
3. Jeffrey Sexton

   

   0 posts
   
   3/21/2012 7:03 PM

   Ryan:
   
   My club was using expensive white sand in their bunkers before I began two years ago. With all of the years of silting and washing their white sand became brown. Adding white sand to these bunkers looked a bit strange to me, so I began inserting our top dressing sand. I can get 3 loads of it for the price of one load of the white sand. It seems to play well. We actually redrained one last fall and it continues to drain very well thus far. As far as your bunker liner question. I have a lot of experience with them. They tend to keep your drains open much longer then without them. They also keep the pea gravel in place in the drain lines and out of your sand. Make sure to construct your new bunkers a little deeper then normal to keep the trap rake out of your liners. For a small budget course, the liners are the way to go. Even though you might think you don't wash much after a rain event, your maintenance cost of the bunkers will go down 50%. Pay me now, pay me later kind of thing. Bunker woll makes a great liner. Hope this helps.
   
   Jeff Sexton
   Henderson Country Club
   Henderson, KY

   
   
   
   
4. Ryan Otto

   

   0 posts
   
   3/21/2012 9:03 PM

   Thanks for the input guys, I'll look into the liners. I've got some experience in renovating bunker, we re did our practice bunker and actually never used pea rock just put a sock, what we called it, around pipe. I was only at that course a year after it was done, but it held up really well during a rainy summer.

   
   
   
   
5. Fleegel Timothy

   
   3/21/2012 10:03 PM

   Hey I remember that bunker!

   
   
   
   
6. James Smith

   

   112 posts
   
   3/24/2012 8:03 AM

   If you do not have the budget to add 6-8" of sand from the get go and maintain it at 4-6" do not use a liner. We tried it years ago when we had a larger budget then the funds ran dry and as we lost sand the mechanical rake ripped up the liners. One of the hardest jobs to do is completely dig out a liner without destroying the bunker. Since we do not have much of a budget I have switched to sloping and laying sod on all bunker lips to the bottom of the bunker and then adding 6-8" of masonry sand which one of my board members get a cost price. While it is not idea sand the savings of around 50-60% on the price per load has convinced my club that it is the only affordable way to keep sand in our bunkers. by re-sloping our lips and adding sod I have knocked out 80-90% of the contamination that was washing into our bunkers making them drain decently for around 8-10 years. Is this the right way to go about it? maybe not but it is the only affordable means we have of keeping all 44 bunkers in playing shape.
   
   Like another poster said, bunkers can take a large part of a budget to maintain properly. We look at them as a hazard and a part of our budget where we can make cuts so instead of cutting complete maintenance on all bunkers we just cut our expectations of having Pro-style bunkers. It is more important for us to have all of them all drain well and place decent then having only some of them done completely right and others playing pisspoor. My members except this without complaint.

   
   
   
   
7. Cody Schulke

   

   0 posts
   
   12/19/2014 3:12 PM

   We are looking at replacing our bunker sand and I'm looking for some answers as far as how others went about removing the old sand. What equipment did you use? Was there a lot of manual labor involved? Also what were you doing with the sand, we are considering topdressing fairways with it. Any tips/tricks that worked well for you would be greatly appreciated.

   
   
   
   
8. Jeffrey Sexton

   

   0 posts
   
   12/19/2014 4:12 PM

   Cody,
   
   We push the sand into a pile at the lower end of the bunker with our sand pro. We then lift the pile out with our backhoe.
   
   
   Jeff Sexton
   Evansville CC

   
   
   
   
9. Melvin Waldron

   

   43 posts
   
   12/22/2014 10:12 AM

   Bunkers we have worked on had varying levels of sand, silt, mud in them, we removed most by hand.
   
   We stockpiled it out of sight, but I think we will use that and other bunkers we do to make our nursery/research area in the future.
   
   Mel

   
   Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
   
   
10. Andy Jorgensen

    

    1 posts
    
    12/22/2014 12:12 PM

    Ours are large enough we used a box blade on a tractor to push into a pile, then used a loader to scoop it out. Once scooped out, it went into a Dakota material handler to be topdressed on our fairways or rough.
    
    But, I've done smaller ones with a mini-excavator with a large bucket. This requires some pretty good skill so you aren't digging too deep though.

    
    
    
    
11. Cody Schulke

    

    0 posts
    
    1/6/2015 10:01 AM

    Thank You for your responses!

    
    
    
    
12. Alan Fitzgerald

    

    0 posts
    
    1/6/2015 1:01 PM

    If you use a mini excavator is is useful to use a smooth bucket - if you can't get one, you can weld/bolt a plate over the existing. It helps greatly in scraping the sand while doing minimal damage to the floor.

    
    
    
    
13. Nathan Bolhous

    

    0 posts
    
    1/6/2015 2:01 PM

    We went through the same process as others with pushing into one side and removing, but we didn't use the spoils as topdressing for fairways because of sand contamination. We are currently in the process of re establishing native areas with newer round up fescues and used the sand to heavily topdress/aerify the sand into the profile to give seeds a good sandy base.
    
    Nathan
    BriarwoodCC
    Deerfield IL