This particular topic is both really interesting, filled with fascinating minutae of both construction methods and maintenance methods and also somewhat hilarious and even ironic!
There may be some very interesting facts revealed in Tommy Naccarato's post too. I really don't know for sure but I suspect what Tommy says about Hanse's bunker construction methods (not bunkers considered to be that kind of European stacked sod variety most are referring to on this topic either) is true.
Gil and his boys do read this site from time to time and maybe they will come on here and explain how they do make most of their normal bunkers--stacking sod or not!
But then again, maybe they just may not come on here and explain how they make them! Maybe they don't feel like revealing some of their "secret ingredients!"
But say they do make them with stacked sod. This brings up something that Don Mahaffey just said; ie, how do the stacked sod faces or the stacked sod just above the sand upsweeps get watered to prevent them from "dessicating" and eventually breaking down? Well, maybe they don't get watered on purpose! Maybe they want them to dessicate or semi-dessicate, maybe they want those sod layers to start to slip and break down here and there of their own semi-dessicated accord.
If the grass performs the way Hanse and company does this, it's long enough anyway to semi-cover the "breakdown" or "slip" and create one helluva cool random and rugged look, it might be what some of us think of as the little known "three dimensionality" of really great bunkers to the eye at golfer level! AHA, maybe the secret ingredient to really good hand detailed bunker making afterall.
Maybe I'm all wrong about this but if I'm right maybe Hanse and Co. may not or should not admit it anyway. The alternative rugged "three dimensional" bunker construction method of Hanse & Co maybe the highly prized but not that prevalent Kittleman method of simply pitching clumps of sod at bunker faces and surrounds and seeing how they look and if they look cool and random just let them be and come back a while later to see if they took--sort of "survival of the fittest" Kittleman/Darwinian thing.
I've not seen this method during creation but I've heard that the Kittleman method works best while smoking a cigar and even when he gets into some sidearm sod pitching, even backhand or over the head sod pitching. Sometimes they even say a certain amount of giggling indicates a great product under construction! I'm sure this is apocryphal too though.
But if any of this is true they should deny it and it's probably all apocryphal anyway. Just as apocyphal as the way the old bunkers of Merion may have been maintained for many decades. If something broke down maybe just leave it be or with a major breakdown just prop it back up by sticking a piece of carpet or something up under there and cover it up. Some say that was a time tested maintenance practice that was used for decades, in more recent decades generally done near evening or at night when any and all golfers were at least somewhere having drinks!
What if someone would see that maintenance practice though? The risk was too great someone might conclude this indicated the course was ultimately some kind of junk yard! I heard a rumor once that Jimmy Hoffa and his welded shut metal casket was up under the bunker face of a little used bunker on the right ridge on Pine Valley's #6 hole, but I'm almost 100% sure that story is apocryphal.
Anyway, this is all in fun Gil. I know you or Bill and your boys would never consider doing anything this unimmaculate!