Interesting explanation Alan, and I might experiment with the Billy Bunker... but for now I'm going to stick with my guns...proper design, construction and the right sand and drainage materials are still key to a successful bunker for me.
Earlier I called the Owner/builder of a course I designed in up state NY just to check on it. It was built 16 years ago on rolling terrain in an old apple orchard. Soils are clay/rock and don't drain well (I know because I grew up there and have dug in everything) If you want a pond you just dig it out on a slope and once rain fills it up you have a stable pond, no leaks, no liners. We built the course for under 1.5M and it received Golf Course Digests Best New Bargain of the Year in 2000.
After reading that the USGA recklessly states that bunkers should be redone every 7 years, I decided to give him a call. BTW I think that this type of recommendation from one of the governing bodies of the game is totally misleading to superintendents and club-owners and managers and just drives course maintenance costs up...along with similar estimates that the irrigation needs to be re done every 15 years, same for the greens etc...and this is from the same group that gave us the Chambers Bay maintenance fiasco. I don't buy it.
The course, along with it's award winning restaurant, is the very successful Altamont Orchards...a model for what a public course can be. One of the owners is Dan Abbruze, who runs golf operations:
-Dan how are your bunkers holding up? Have you had to rebuild any?
No, they're fine. we pull the sand off the faces once a year to re edge them, them put it back and put a little more in tho freshen them up, thats it.
-Drain OK? (we used a herring bone pattern with 4"perf pipe in washed pea gravel...no sock or liner on top. We switched to solid/smooth wall outfalls get the water out faster and avoid silt buildup).
No, they're all good. We did have one clog where wetland vegetation in the outfall had choked it off ,but we removed the clog and its good.
-The USGA says you need to redo your bunkers every 7 years, when you going to do yours?
Not till they start to fail and its been 16 years so far. I'd be broke if I listened to that advice lol
-How are your greens doing BTW...need to replace them soon? (the course is generally recognized as having some of the best greens in the Albany Region, by vote)(they are well sited, normal USGA with a gravel blanket and just covered with a thin layer of sand before they are put to bed for the winter)
They are probably the best ever...no real poa issues we can't spray out... rolling at 10 right now. We tried a new product on the buried elephant at 6, and its perfect now. (it would dry out, used profile, zeolite etc without great success). We spray on a sunblock that blocks out the UV rays and you can't tell the difference from the rest of the green.
-Irrigation OK?
When we had the 20 below spell this winter the ground froze down 5' in some places. We had some breaks we had to repair. Clay moves.
-It's been 16 years...are you planning on redoing your irrigation anytime soon?
Ahh no lol
Anyway, I could go on but won't, and I could call other courses we have built but I feel results would be similar.
We built this course for less than what a typical irrigation system costs today. Somethings wrong, and it's not just bunker liners...they're just one the many extras that have become the industry norm. Want to expand golf?
Build better and cheaper using common sense design and don't be sold on bells and whistles. Build more Orchard Creeks.
I could go on but I won't.