John, the pictures are absolutely stunning. The second hole looks like the battleground for an evolutionary struggle between grass and sand. Do winds constantly shifting the front lines? It will be interesting to see how that hole looks in a few years. I hope the project gets back on track soon.
Ed
Ed....you're right that it will be interesting to see where the grass limits are in a few years.
We have this situation on many holes....one where we didn't want to create or maintain an hard edge to the grassed areas....and we resisted doing this for two reasons.
One was aesthetic, as we wanted a truer links look in appearance and playability.....even though we were in the desert and in an environment far removed from traditional links settings.
We definitely didn't want the course to resemble the more hard edged courses of the South West....not that there is anything wrong with them.
The other was more practical.....we didn't want to fight mother nature.
This can be a very wind swept environment, and whenever you put anything up in the air sand will accrete behind it, causing a build up that can be beneficial or detrimental.
The grassed area on the back of #2 is part of a huge blowout and aerodynamically we just left it alone and grassed the existing contours, with the hope that they will stay put......and so far they have.
We also decided to let the Paspalum grass run out of the irrigated areas as far as it could live......essentially letting drought conditions maintain the grass limits.
I know this might seem cruel to some that we let the grass suffer intentionally at the edges, but 'drought' is a whole lot cheaper than having to pay for hand labor...........and we can be insensitive SOB's.
Its a hard world out there.
