Video Feature on Bunker Maintenance at Cal Club

[Jim Thornton]

Here's a link to a video segment from turfnet.com featuring Thomas Bastis, Superintendent from Cal Club, discussing bunker maintenance following Kyle Phillip's outstanding restoration of Cal Club.  Shows some nice footage of the course.


http://www.turfnet.com/tv/player.html?ee_mediahash=70c4e849762d42e9d106d33b94d20cbc

[David_Tepper]

Jim -

Thanks for the link. Anyone who has the oppurtunity to play the Cal Club should not let the invite go to waste.

DT
 

[Jim Thornton]

David-

I couldn't agree more.

I think it's the best course in SF, and that's a big statement considering the competition.

Thomas Bastis and his crew do a great job...Cal Club was the best conditioned course I saw in 2009...extremely firm and fast.

They're fortunate to have Thomas Bastis.

Jim

[Rob Rigg]

Interesting to get a close up view of bunkers across a hole or two to really get a flavor for the fairway/bunker, rough/bunker and fescue/bunker combinations that the super and team have to deal with.

Cal Club looks beautiful, the attention to detail is exquisite.

[John Blain]

I just returned from a trip to San Francisco where we played CordeValle, SFGC, Pasatiempo and Cal Club. Without question Cal Club was the highlight of the trip. I had no idea how good this place was going to be. Many of us on the east coast are not that familiar with the club but what a place! The views alone are worth the experience not to mention the golf course itself which is spectacular.  Nothing against the other three we played but Cal Club was the highlight of our trip, no question.

-John

[Jeff_Mingay]

John,

You make a great point about views at Cal Club. I played there earlier this year and was most impressed with the tree work (removal) that was done as part of the recent renovation. The property is almost perfectly treed, featuring beautiful specimen cypress and long views across the course.

Cal Club is a very impressive place. And there's more to it than those "fancy" bunkers 

[Jeff_Brauer]

I would love to hear the money involved in maintaining that look.  What I hear is that the "naturalized" look is probably not for the faint of heart or low of budget!  Added construction cost is subsurface irrigation bunker bank irrigation, and a yearly foray out to find the edge of the bunker.

It is pretty easy to see why those ragged edges went away from most courses in earlier economic downturns. I would have a hard time recommending that style right now to any but the highest end club out there.

Of course, I can also attest that I have seen bunker maintenance budgets on much cleaner looking edges, so maybe all I can say is that before proposing that edge, I would make sure the course understood the entire cost, as I would with any bunker style, or for that matter, any proposed improvements.

[Jerry Lemons]

Jeff, I too have express concerns to clients who wanted the "new" rugged edge look. IN certain areas where cool season grasses cannot be grown and in areas where the "natural" look gets unplayable due to thickness of the turf, it just doesn't work very well and and is costly to maintain. I have heard several folks try and convince me that the rugged look is less expensive to maintain but I hope someone has some data on that to prove the point. A bunker shaped with a smooth edge has about 10% less edge space than a "rugged serrated one.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jerry,

I recall the super at Pine Valley bemoaning how much harder the native areas were to maintain than turf.  I have a lot of work right now redesigning bunker edges to "tune" them to maintenance practices and equipment, rather than the other way around.

[Anthony Gray]

  Wrong thread

[Ian Larson]

The data for rugged looking bunkers not being costly to maintain is simple. Taking the Cal Club for instance....Tom Bastis and his crew do not go out and pitch fork those bunker edges every month. There's no need to, a rugged fescue edge will not be lost quickly.

Now if a club has smooth clean edges they demand to be edged every month. Especially at a club that demands alot of attention to detail. Bunkers with clean edges don't afford the super the luxury to let them go for a while. If they do, the bunkers get shaggy. And shaggy in a bad way where they look neglected.

This is a case where it's good for architects to have been intimate with golf course maintenance at a point in their career. I mean literally be out there with a bunker edging crew to see what goes in to it. To see how many guys it takes and for how long to truly get the job done right.

I can tell you that to get bunkers edged once a month with high attention to detail will take roughly five guys 2-3 days. Guys on the weedeaters, flymowers, backpack blowers and rakes. The math on that is pretty simple.

5 x $11 x 8 hours x 2 days = $880

and that's the very bare bones of it. Add steep banks, quantity of bunkers or crew guys making maybe $15 an hour and that number can at least double. Put that into a high volume play facility it costs even more because it's guaranteed guys will take longer while they constantly wait for golfers.

If a club has smooth and maintained edges while demanding attention to detail with their bunkers...bunkers will be edged once a month by a gang of guys.

If a club has bunkers with scalloped edges and embrace the natural and rugged look there is no pressure for the super to feel like they have to be edged every month. All Tom Bastis is doing is making sure the edges aren't lost...and the cost to that is significantly lower.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Jeff B.,

I understand your point. But thank goodness there are course superintendents and golf clubs out there willing to do what's necessary to maintain character-ful bunkers (and other features). Otherwise, we'd end up with a homogeneous collection of golf courses throughout the world.

Don't you think?

[Jerry Lemons]

This is a case where it's good for architects to have been intimate with golf course maintenance at a point in their career. I mean literally be out there with a bunker edging crew to see what goes in to it. To see how many guys it takes and for how long to truly get the job done right.

Ian, having 20+ years as a CGCS,  I am do understand edging cost. I applaud those that have decided to use the Trendy rugged bunker look. Seems almost EVERYONE is on that Trendy bandwagon. It will be interesting to see how many course can afford them long term. The natural look does have a cost and requires some maintenance. Tolerance by members/players of unmaintained bunkers edges is not much different than smooth edges if the bunker sand is poor.

I still would like to hear from others who have  experience with both styles in the same climatic location.     

[Ian Larson]

This is a case where it's good for architects to have been intimate with golf course maintenance at a point in their career. I mean literally be out there with a bunker edging crew to see what goes in to it. To see how many guys it takes and for how long to truly get the job done right.

Ian, having 20+ years as a CGCS,  I am do understand edging cost. I applaud those that have decided to use the Trendy rugged bunker look. Seems almost EVERYONE is on that Trendy bandwagon. It will be interesting to see how many course can afford them long term. The natural look does have a cost and requires some maintenance. Tolerance by members/players of unmaintained bunkers edges is not much different than smooth edges if the bunker sand is poor.

I still would like to hear from others who have  experience with both styles in the same climatic location.     

Jerry,

Every time this topic comes up theres always someone that brings up "trendy". What exactly does that mean? That its a fad that will soon pass? I dont look at it as a trend or a fad. Yeah, there has been an emergence of modern courses with naturalized bunkering. Is that so wrong? I look at it more as a renaissance to how bunkering was originally intended to be. And I look at the cookie cutter saucer shaped sharp edged bunkering as a fad or trend partly due to the evolution of maintenance practices with naturalized bunkering.

Im very curious as to what you consider the extra cost a naturalized bunker creates that would put it over the top of hard edged bunker? A naturalized bunker maintenance regime would have to at least match or exceed the labor and frequency of labor annually compared to hard edged bunkers for them to be too costly in the short or long term. If labor and its frequency doesnt exceed it then I feel its a slippery slope to argue against them.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ian,

For the record, I put myself through college working golf course maintenance, and even though things have changed a lot in those 30 years, I know something about it in my next career.

I think Jerry is right to call lacy edged bunkers trendy. At least he didn't call them "fads" which is, IMHO, a much shorter term connotation. 

My point was that the regular shapes evolved because of maintenance technology, and you seem to agree.  It was and probably is cheaper to smooth things out to the radius that a mower can mow.  I also think that culturally, with our fascination with lawns and the formalized English landscape replicas in most suburban lawns, that the previous generation came to equate perfection (including bunker edges) with better design and maintenance.  As you point out, that cut both ways - there is need to reestablish edges of all types.  There is also a possilbe need to water bunker banks separately from fw and rough banks because of different watering needs, which is not edge dependent.

If there was a trend from 1930-1990, it was to look for ways to save money because golf was a crappy business in most cases.  The trend towards great design at nearly all costs started when the economy ramped up about then.  So, its a shorter trend than the frugal one, IMHO. Now, if you want to talk about what "bunkers are supposed to look like" there is an argument on another thread saying you ought to go back to the 1500's for that! No fair pickikng and choosing your time frame when discussing what bunkers ought to look like!