#18 Fairway Bunker

This morning the material arrived for the construction of the stack sod bunker in the middle of #18 fairway. This bunker was redone in 2012 but due to the organic nature of using stack sod, decomposition has caused the face of the bunker to fail.

This is standard for all stack sod bunkers which last only a few years before needing to be re-built. Even in an advantageous climate such as Scotland these bunkers are constantly being re-done.

In order to lessen the cost of re-building the bunker we looked into options such as removing the bunker completely or making it a "regular bunker" such as the majority of the bunkers on the course. These options were not suitable to following the original design and intent of the course architecture. A product called Durabunker (Durabunker website) was recently used at a Troon managed course in Tennessee with great results. This product mimics stack sod but will last for over 20 years. There are plenty of pictures and videos on the website.

This morning the material arrived from England.

Up close pictures using Pinki as a reference.

The next step will be done in-house over the next 1-2 weeks which is to remove the old material from the current bunker. Then a certified installer will come, hopefully the week of March 7th, who will work with us to install the material.

Course Opening

Had some nice weather today with snow melting and it looks warm for the weekend as well. Although the next few days are forecasted to be cool. Just wanted to reiterate something I wrote on the blog a few years ago:

While out on the course today I realized that some may have questions as to why we have frost delays or close the course when the holes around the clubhouse look frost and snow free. While this is true, there are holes on the interior and far side of the course that for various reasons stay colder and the frost and snow are still present.

Also, when we get into freeze and thaw periods root shearing can occur. This is when the top 1/2 to 1 inch of the soil is thawed out but the soil below is not. Therefore traffic causes the top, unthawed, layer to move and literally cuts the roots away from the area below which is frozen. Of course we do not want this to happen!

We will be reviewing the course every day this week and weekend so we may open at the earliest possible time without damaging the course.