Design/Build Flaws that Lead to Maintenance Issues

[Bryan Izatt]

I'm thinking of two examples.

One at my home course where, on a hilly site, there is a fair amount of surface drainage during rain events.  The design/build is such that the runoff in some places washes out some fairway bunkers and some greenside bunkers during these rain events.  It happens five to ten times during our seven month season.  It takes a few days to get the bunkers remediated after each event and the quality of the sand has degraded badly as a result of the events.  The course operator/lessee doesn't want to pay for the remediation and the owner, who is responsible for capital improvements refuses to undertake them.  Seems to me the design/build was flawed in not directing the surface drainage away from the bunkers in question.

The second example is at Streamsong Red where last winter, after a year of operation I noticed that the tee pads on some holes, 6 and 7 come to mind, were pretty chewed up.  The tee pads were small and since they weren't overseeded the dormant Bermuda got chewed up to where the tees looked somewhat barren.  Perhaps the tee pads should have been larger to accommodate the heavier play in the winter when the Bermuda is dormant.

In neither case can the maintenance people rectify the problem.

I'm sure there are other examples.

How do courses and clubs deal with these kind of issues?  

Is there any accountability for the designer/builders in these kind of situations?

[Adrian_Stiff]

One of the biggest signs I see of poor golf course design is the placement of a bunker in the direct route to the next tee, that causes traffic to route around the edges and mass concentration and so compaction problems. See this flaw a lot with good players turned designers who are not thinking of the agronomics.

Wash outs with bunkers is tough to call bad. If the sand is on a slope it will wash out.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bryan,

Design is so subjective, I have can't recall a lawsuit or claim for damages for anything like that.  Most architects fear such a thing may be coming, but where does it stop?  You put in too many bunkers?  You get sued because the club president loses a match (and big bet) from not getting out of a bunker?

As Adrian mentions, as much as I try, it is hard to conceive of all traffic concentration problems.  One or two seem to occur no matter what I try, and of course, some come of a result of the topo.

For bunkers you mention, it was presumably discussed and approved by the owner (sometimes over the maintenance objections of the super!) before building a MacKenzie style flash bunker that might wash.  You can test the sand for angle of repose (usually no more than 25%, and angular sand holding better than round sand) but sometimes, the sand you propose changes, too.  You can add numerous drain lines, and bunker liners, but those can change or get cut, too.  The only wash proof bunker is a dead flat one, and to be honest, if any water comes down a bank, I have seen those wash, too!  With so many moving parts, its pretty much an accepted part of the biz that there will be some maintenance issues after opening.

I know many courses (including some of my own, where I have been graciously called back) that have flattened bunker slopes to reduce maintenance, usually as part of their program to add or replace bunker liners, and fix all the problems that have cropped up since opening.

I could see some repair accountability for contractors in situation where drainage clearly designed to avoid a bunker got into it via faulty grading, and usually done within the one year guarantee period, if any.

Ditto for tee pads, although tee size is pretty standard in the industry and again, you would think either the gca or field rep for the owner would notice such things.  Its just that when you try to fit a tee into an interesting land form, sometimes they get small and that value decision is made to build something cool, if less practical.  In fact, almost all of design is a cool vs practical.  The build it as big as budget allows situation, but the budget is too small, is common too.

Again, minor washouts are not considered unusual.  I have seen claims against architects for things like dams blowing out or drainage patterns changing, and affecting surrounding real estate, but few if any for drainage problems on course.

[Steve Okula]

Yes, any bunker with a slope in it will wash if it rains hard enough, but it's a hundred times worse if the grading outside the bunker allows surface runoff to flow in. There is minimal problem with the rain actually falling into the bunker causing erosion, compared to a river rolling into it. It would be a petty boring world without flashed bunker faces, and they can be sustainable if constructed correctly.

I have spent a career as a superintendent correcting mistakes left by architects and builders. Besides stupid bunkers as described above, there are always drainage issues, and, perhaps most annoyingly, little tiny tees and greens tucked in among the trees because it looks cute but  where no grass could ever hope to survive the shade, tree roots, lack of air circulation, and concentration of traffic.

 

[Philip Hensley]

Great point. Most of the tees on my home course are rarely covered in full with grass because they are all tucked into trees.

[Bryan Izatt]

Out of curiosity, do contracts with architects and builders/contractors include warranty clauses and guarantees?  If so, for what?  Is there any sort of standardization.

Regarding the cool vs practical spectrum, is that something that is discussed for the overall design or major features during design or during construction or ......?  Are there mileposts and acceptance points where there is some formality to the decision to go cool vs practical or vice versa?  Or is that client dependent?

[Thomas Dai]

A feature I'm surprised not to see more is a trench or gully built between a downslope and a green.

This kind of general idea  -



Presents a short game hazard under normal circumstances and when heavy rain rushes down from above it catches the water and limits flooding of the putting surface.

I believe the back of the 13th at ANGC has a similar trench/gully at the rear.

atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

Bryan,

Most architect contracts call for using a "professional standard of care" to assure designs function.  That said, it would be easy for any defendant architect to show others used a similar standard, or lower.  When you have some of the top guys in the business designing some of the hardest to maintain golf courses, it would be hard to make claims on that standard.

Contractors usually provide a one year guaranteed against workmanship defects, trench settling, etc.  Sometimes, parts of the guarantee extend to two years, and in other cases, usually turf growth and grow in, the guarantee doesn't apply,  providing the contractor provides viable seed and sod.  They would have no responsibility for small tees, as that is a design issue, unless they didn't follow the plans against the architects orders.

As to those design issues, I think most architects provide a design program, and the owner should understand that you are aiming for 6000 SF tees and greens (of course, greens have more variety, and par 3 tees should be larger, etc.)  And, in most cases, shaping is approved as they go as a formal part of the construction process.  It is presumed that the architect and owners rep review for conformance to basic design specs before both approve.

The formality of the process varies all over the map, usually depending on the people relationships on the job.  The owner's rep may be in awe of the architect (well, its never happened to me, but.....) or respectful that design is design.  If that is the superintendent, they usually push for as maintenance friendly design as possible, but some are hesitant to confront the architect. 

I had one who never said a thing, but I received one of his "cover my ass" memos from him by mistake.  While he never said a word during the design process, it turns out he wrote "memos for the file" that basically said that about everything about the design and construction was below his standards, and of course, he couldn't be blamed for any maintenance issues with the crap he was dealing with.  IMHO< that wasn't the most constructive approach......That is rare, but an example of the extremes of the process.

On the other end of it,  I am also aware of a long ago case where a semi-rookie architect designed tees at about 2500 SF instead of 6000 SF, and somewhere over the winter he learned somewhere what a proper size should be.  The next spring, he "Un-approved" several tees he had previously approved because "the contractor built them too small" while the contractor argued that he built them to plan and they were approved in the field.  From memory, the contractor absorbed the cost of the rebuild, but contractually, they probably didn't need to.

Just some more "tales from the front line."

[Jeff_Brauer]

Thomas,

Yes, and Ross wrote about that and the impracticality of punch bowl greens.  Somewhere along the line, architects, including me, got into the idea of backing mounds, many of which drain substantial amounts of water on the green.  That can be a real problem for supers where you have Bermuda surrounds and bent greens, because of the different chemical sensitivities.  Also, if enough area drains on the green, and then out the front, it is a contributor to wet approach areas.

It is still a value decision of whether it is worth it for a particular design.  On my current project in Northern MN, we tried to keep water off the greens, but two greens have areas where it does drain on the surface - on the fifth, the slope is such that the back right of the green couldn't avoid it, even though the rest of the green drains away from the surface, and it caused some minor grow in problems.  On the fourth, I wanted a kick plate as an alternate way to get to a tucked pin on the right.  Not sure that is wrong design wise, but when seeded, it washed the green repeatedly in grow in, and was later sodded to rough, reducing the effectiveness (I presume, maybe it will be cut low enough to work when open).

Again, design involves some compromise for different reasons, and it is easy after the fact to question it and place some strict standard on it for judgment, but its usually clouded.  If too strict with every rule, then design would be pretty standardized, even more than many think it is now.  I will say, even after 30+ years of this, it is one of those learning experiences that you tuck away,  and the net effect for me will be to avoid any drainage onto the green in the future.  Others may be somewhere else along the design philosophy curve.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

A feature I'm surprised not to see more is a trench or gully built between a downslope and a green.

This kind of general idea  -



Presents a short game hazard under normal circumstances and when heavy rain rushes down from above it catches the water and limits flooding of the putting surface.

I believe the back of the 13th at ANGC has a similar trench/gully at the rear.




atb

Thomas very much a Braid/Colt sort of design feature, one that you see quite alot on many of the UK park and heathland courses, I love them.
Some great ones on Sunningdale New and Woodhall Spa uses this feature extensively.

[Thomas Dai]

Michael,

Actually it's the 6th green at Beau Desert by Herbert Fowler.

Terrific feature though (terrific green/course too).

See this thread for more - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58979.0.html

atb

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Okay...now I see it.
Played there a couple of time many moons ago. I actually thought the picture may be from Hollinwell.

[JMEvensky]

It would be a petty boring world without flashed bunker faces, and they can be sustainable if constructed correctly.

 

This I don't understand. I'm certainly willing to concede they can be built correctly--but then what? Don't you end up with a decision based solely on aesthetics?

If one believes it's OK to have the occasional plugged lie in the face of a bunker,then I understand the point of flashing sand up the face. But don't most clubs spend a lot of maintenance time/money on tamping down the sand in the face to avoid a plugged lie? Further,if the object of the exercise is to have the ball release down off a bunker slope,why not just grass the faces to begin with?

Sand flashed bunkers look cool--but I don't see the argument in favor versus grass faced.

What am I missing?

[Adrian_Stiff]

It would be a petty boring world without flashed bunker faces, and they can be sustainable if constructed correctly.

 

This I don't understand. I'm certainly willing to concede they can be built correctly--but then what? Don't you end up with a decision based solely on aesthetics?

If one believes it's OK to have the occasional plugged lie in the face of a bunker,then I understand the point of flashing sand up the face. But don't most clubs spend a lot of maintenance time/money on tamping down the sand in the face to avoid a plugged lie? Further,if the object of the exercise is to have the ball release down off a bunker slope,why not just grass the faces to begin with?

Sand flashed bunkers look cool--but I don't see the argument in favor versus grass faced.

What am I missing?

You are missing 'the look' without sand on the face, ie showing, it all starts to look a bit boring and you can only see bunkers if downhill. The best way to build a course for maintenance purposes is not going to be the best looker, build that way and you may as well play golf on a simulator....it's all a continual balancing act about doing what's good for golf and good for the turf, and of course the economics

[Adam Lawrence]

Michael,

Actually it's the 6th green at Beau Desert by Herbert Fowler.

Terrific feature though (terrific green/course too).

See this thread for more - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58979.0.html

atb

There are several examples of those horseshoe swales behind greens at Beau Desert. I assume they're there because that's where Fowler got the fill to build the green.

[Jeff_Brauer]

It would be a petty boring world without flashed bunker faces, and they can be sustainable if constructed correctly.

 

This I don't understand. I'm certainly willing to concede they can be built correctly--but then what? Don't you end up with a decision based solely on aesthetics?

If one believes it's OK to have the occasional plugged lie in the face of a bunker,then I understand the point of flashing sand up the face. But don't most clubs spend a lot of maintenance time/money on tamping down the sand in the face to avoid a plugged lie? Further,if the object of the exercise is to have the ball release down off a bunker slope,why not just grass the faces to begin with?

Sand flashed bunkers look cool--but I don't see the argument in favor versus grass faced.

What am I missing?

I think most good players prefer flat ones for the reason you mentioned, and especially the fact that slopes near the green can plug, but you miss another five yards and hit the flat bottom and you are punished less, so no "proportional penalty."

I have tried to justify the flash bunkers over flat bunkers.  It is the aesthetics, or in the words of Billy Crystal, "Thay look mahvalous, dahlling!" (And the corollary, its better to look good than be easier to maintain)

In a visual world, some consideration should be given to great looking bunkers over easy maintenance, at least wherever they can afford the extra maintenance cost.  And, with bunker liners, the prevalence of washing out is reducing somewhat.  It sometimes also takes importing a better, more angular sand, too, both building the initial cost.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Jeff makes a good point about angular sand being best for bunkers. Rounded sand is better for greens construction of course. Many use the same sand for both jobs though the economics can really dictate, so sometimes money wins. In the UK the best bunker sand is £50 per tonne for us in the South West.

[Thomas Dai]

I am always intrigued by the bunkers on the Melbourne sandbelt courses when I see them on TV, in photos etc.

The bottoms seem very flat, the sides nicely sloped but with apparently little sand on them such that shots do not plug on the faces but run down into the flat bottom area.

Is this generally the case or are TV and photos etc misrepresenting the actual. I believe I have read, not sure where, that such a design, ie sand on the face but very thin so it looks sandy but doesn't cause shots to hold on the slope or plug is a Dr MacK' approach. Is this correct?

Atb

[Michael Essig]

I am always intrigued by the bunkers on the Melbourne sandbelt courses when I see them on TV, in photos etc.

The bottoms seem very flat, the sides nicely sloped but with apparently little sand on them such that shots do not plug on the faces but run down into the flat bottom area.

Is this generally the case or are TV and photos etc misrepresenting the actual. I believe I have read, not sure where, that such a design, ie sand on the face but very thin so it looks sandy but doesn't cause shots to hold on the slope or plug is a Dr MacK' approach. Is this correct?

Atb

I don't believe they rake the slopes because there is no need; only rake the flat bottoms.  To me RM bunkers are ideal - flashed but play like flat bottomed bunker.

As to maintenance, I am curious, does the thin sand on the bunker faces mean the sand washes off easily?  And what is under that thin layer of sand?  Anyone with knowledge?

[A.G._Crockett]

We redid many of our bunkers this past summer after years of maintenance issues with the flash faces washing out frequently.

I've got to say that I don't see ANY reason not to do it, either from a maintenance or golf standpoint.  Having the slope in gnarly bermuda rough introduces a lot of different types of recovery shots, and the plugged ball that sometimes couldn't even be located is thankfully no longer part of our course.

I suppose that aesthetically some people would object, but I wonder if that isn't more about tradition than anything else.  I haven't heard a single complaint from any of our core group of golfers.

[Ian Andrew]

Rounded sand is better for greens construction of course.

I think you need to amend that.

If the particle size is too similar it behaves like a "playbox full of coloured balls"
You will get tire tracks from equipment until you amend the sand to address the uniformity (happens more than you would think)

[Bryan Izatt]

Jeff,

Thanks for all that on contracts.  Interesting stories from the front line.

Re the 6000 sq ft tees rule of thumb, is that per tee deck or total for separated tee decks.  The ones I'm thinking about at SS Red are separate and each is small - no idea what the total area is but maybe it's near 6000 sq ft.


To all, re bunkers, are there not some standards for flash faced bunkers that most architects/builders know about.  I've read about liners but don't recall ever seeing any in practice. Yet, I've somewhat frequently seen washed out bunkers.  Seems to me if your going to go for the cool flashed face look that the architect, contractor and owner should be on the same page and budget appropriately for the build and maintenance. 

How often does the wrong sand get used?  My two home courses use completely different sand and neither plays very well after 6 to 8 years.  Some remediation of the sand has been taking place in the last couple of years but neither are very good even after remediation.  Every year at the AGM the sand is the major complaint of the membership.  It would have been better and cheaper to get it right in the design/build.

[Don Mahaffey]

It would be a petty boring world without flashed bunker faces, and they can be sustainable if constructed correctly.

 

This I don't understand. I'm certainly willing to concede they can be built correctly--but then what? Don't you end up with a decision based solely on aesthetics?

If one believes it's OK to have the occasional plugged lie in the face of a bunker,then I understand the point of flashing sand up the face. But don't most clubs spend a lot of maintenance time/money on tamping down the sand in the face to avoid a plugged lie? Further,if the object of the exercise is to have the ball release down off a bunker slope,why not just grass the faces to begin with?

Sand flashed bunkers look cool--but I don't see the argument in favor versus grass faced.

What am I missing?

The guy wrestling a fly mower.  "low maintenance" is a term coined by a non maintenance guy.

[Don Mahaffey]

Bryan,

Most architect contracts call for using a "professional standard of care" to assure designs function.  That said, it would be easy for any defendant architect to show others used a similar standard, or lower.  When you have some of the top guys in the business designing some of the hardest to maintain golf courses, it would be hard to make claims on that standard.

Contractors usually provide a one year guaranteed against workmanship defects, trench settling, etc.  Sometimes, parts of the guarantee extend to two years, and in other cases, usually turf growth and grow in, the guarantee doesn't apply,  providing the contractor provides viable seed and sod.  They would have no responsibility for small tees, as that is a design issue, unless they didn't follow the plans against the architects orders.

As to those design issues, I think most architects provide a design program, and the owner should understand that you are aiming for 6000 SF tees and greens (of course, greens have more variety, and par 3 tees should be larger, etc.)  And, in most cases, shaping is approved as they go as a formal part of the construction process.  It is presumed that the architect and owners rep review for conformance to basic design specs before both approve.

The formality of the process varies all over the map, usually depending on the people relationships on the job.  The owner's rep may be in awe of the architect (well, its never happened to me, but.....) or respectful that design is design.  If that is the superintendent, they usually push for as maintenance friendly design as possible, but some are hesitant to confront the architect.  

I had one who never said a thing, but I received one of his "cover my ass" memos from him by mistake.  While he never said a word during the design process, it turns out he wrote "memos for the file" that basically said that about everything about the design and construction was below his standards, and of course, he couldn't be blamed for any maintenance issues with the crap he was dealing with.  IMHO< that wasn't the most constructive approach......That is rare, but an example of the extremes of the process.

On the other end of it,  I am also aware of a long ago case where a semi-rookie architect designed tees at about 2500 SF instead of 6000 SF, and somewhere over the winter he learned somewhere what a proper size should be.  The next spring, he "Un-approved" several tees he had previously approved because "the contractor built them too small" while the contractor argued that he built them to plan and they were approved in the field.  From memory, the contractor absorbed the cost of the rebuild, but contractually, they probably didn't need to.

Just some more "tales from the front line."

If there is one thing golf could use a lot less of, it's tales from the front line....most are tall tales.
Heard one the other day from a contractor who heard from a contractor about a job I have first hand knowledge of.
The tale was taller than the empire state building and more "talking shit" than anything based on actual fact.
Golf is a small world and too many say way to many things when they really have no idea what they are talking about.

Regarding the superintendent you mention, IMO, any project properly managed will have weekly meetings with agendas and minutes kept. Key stakeholders will be present or call in, and free flowing dialog should be the norm, and encouraged.  Issues with design and construction are on the agenda and talked about out in the open. And if you keep all project communications on a cloud site like Basecamp you don't have a bunch of private emails flying around and back channel crap going on. Follow those simple guidelines and pretty hard for a guy to clam up until the end and then raise issues. And it is not about designing or building by committee, but about explaining construction methods and reasons behind the design decisions.

A project is a team effort and you either get it right, or wrong, as a team.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Rounded sand is better for greens construction of course.

I think you need to amend that.

If the particle size is too similar it behaves like a "playbox full of coloured balls"
You will get tire tracks from equipment until you amend the sand to address the uniformity (happens more than you would think)

No I don't think my statement needs altering. Rounded sands are better for greens. Yes you want a particle range.