Real G Thomas Bunkers vs. Phony G Thomas Bunkers

[pacgd]

The parallel thread of "Crap Bunkers, Great Course" raised a question for me that I'd like to have some of the superintendents and construction people who visit this site help me answer:  What would be the additional costs to a club to build and maintain (or, in the case of existing courses, restore and maintain) the awesome George Thomas bunkers as depicted in Geoff Shackelford's book and elsewhere, as opposed to the less dramatic, softer versions employed by Messrs. Harbottle and Fazio?  

In other words, is there a real money and practicality issue posed to clubs to faithfully restore and maintain the bunkers, or is there really no cost difference to the club, with the decision to go soft basically an artistic compromise by lesser architects than Thomas (or Mackenzie, or fill in the blank for the golden age course architect of your choice)?

Did Doak and Jim Urbina's well-considered interpretations of Mackenzie bunkers at Pasatiempo and The Valley Club add additional construction and ongoing maintenance costs to those clubs as opposed to if they had compromised and built more bland versions?

From a maintenance standpoint, what steps are necessary to properly maintain the "look" of the jagged edge Thomas/Mackenzie bunkers I would like to see faithfully preserved and enjoyed by golfers for years to come?

[TEPaul]

I'd really like to see someone out there give this question a shot! It's a good one and something I think eventually a lot of us would like and may be even need to know some details on.

[Tom Doak]

I don't know if the bunkers at The Valley Club cost much more to maintain after our work, or not.  I will ask Sean McCormick, the superintendent, who's on his way to his new job now.

My best guess would be that they cost more to maintain than the ovals we replaced, but no more than the current bunkers at LACC would.

As for construction cost, the real question is, what would have been a fair price for us to charge The Valley Club?  The truth is that I have yet to meet golf course contractor who would have the patience to keep changing the bunkers until they looked just like the photos, if they had bid the job on a fixed price.  So there was no contractor ... Jim Urbina and one or another of my associates did all the shaping work, and the club's grounds crew did the rest.

We priced that work approximately the same as what a contractor would have charged them to rebuild less accurate versions; I don't know what would have been fair.  I'd be curious what others think.  On a lot of these jobs clubs are charged whatever the contractor thinks they can get away with.

[RJ_Daley]

I wouldn't have any idea what a fair charge would be to restore them as Tom Doak speaks about.  But, I would like to know about the subsequent maintenance cost.  Would it be fair to say that if a club wanted to maintain the bunkers in their intended look of constructed style, they would need one special person on the grounds staff who is solely devoted to the bunker maintenance.  That person would have to be one who is very well learned in the original architects body of work and have a maintenance technique that can get the job done right, it seems to me.  I think that Tommy N or Mike C would be perfect in that regard, since they would be obsessed with maintaining them faithfully without maintaining them at all.

[ian]

The more hand work, the higher the cost.

A jagged line or complex shape requires a higher amount of hand work, whether raking sand or pushing a mower; its just not as fast as a piece of machinery going around a clean line.
Most supers make up for this by hand cutting a little less often and hand raking when neccessary rather than daily; although they have usually added one or two employees to handle the additional maintenance. Thats not very much when you look at the overall budgets.

[TEPaul]

RJ said:

"I wouldn't have any idea what a fair charge would be to restore them as Tom Doak speaks about.  But, I would like to know about the subsequent maintenance cost.  Would it be fair to say that if a club wanted to maintain the bunkers in their intended look of constructed style, they would need one special person on the grounds staff who is solely devoted to the bunker maintenance.  That person would have to be one who is very well learned in the original architects body of work and have a maintenance technique that can get the job done right, it seems to me.  I think that Tommy N or Mike C would be perfect in that regard, since they would be obsessed with maintaining them faithfully without maintaining them at all."

The cost of ongoing maintenance for a more rugged bunker surround look is what I'm interested in too. There was a post on here about that a couple of years ago and the super from Cusgowilla (I think it was) responded that it wasn't a problem maintaining those rugged bunker surrounds but I'd sure like to hear from others who do it.

As far as I'm concerned the bunkering at Brookline is some of the best looking natural Flynn style bunkering I've ever seen and I did talk to Bill Spence about them--not the cost necessarily--but he's very proud of how they're done and maintained and he should be!

As neat a golf course as Brookline is it didn't look like a super big maintenance budget golf course to me!

[Rees Jones]

Mr. Paul-

Thanks for the nice comments about the bunkers that I restored at The Country Club.  

[Don_Mahaffey]

Some thoughts from the maintenance side of things.

1) Most importantly, clubs need to hire supts who know something of G. Thomas' body of work, or whomever work their trying to replicate, imitate, or restore. I don't see an over abundance of supts. who study golden age architecture. The emphasis seems to be more on ways to get greens to roll 15 then on making bunkers look aged.

2) The jagged, haphazard look is more difficult, time consuming, and costly then the clean, soft look. First, the staff that is tasked with maintaining the rugged look needs to be educated and trained to exactly what that means; its a hell of a lot easier to mow the edges clean then it is to let the lips grow and evolve. It's also tricky to keep the edges looking rugged when your dealing with warm season grasses that have a tendency to try and take over the bunker. While they're great because they’re so strong and heat tolerant, bermuda or kikuya is tough to manage because of their aggressive growing habits. Maintaining that wild look with bermuda is a real challenge, because if you let it get thick, it will hold balls where they will be hard to find, and unplayable if they are found. This is not usually viewed as a positive by those who sign the checks.

[TEPaul]

Rees;

You're very welcome, you did a great job with the bunkers at TCC. But for the ongoing maintenance practices since 1987 it's a very good idea for one to talk to Bill Spence about how he does it. They're some of the best Flynn style bunkering architecturally and maintenance-wise I ever saw!

[TEPaul]

Don Mahaffey:

Sounds like the warmer weather courses (with the grasses they use) would have a harder time maintaining that rugged surround look than the more northern tier courses.

[Mike_Cirba]

Rees Jones;

My understanding is that although you were the consulting architect in charge of the Brookline project, someone from the club came on here some months back to claim that all of the work was done inhouse.

That does not diminish any credit you certainly deserve (if indeed you are Rees Jones posting), because by all accounts the work and planning was superb.  Still, given the amount of "restoration" work done by outside contractors these days, I thought it was very important to point out that distinction.  

[Michael Dugger]

Mr. Doak,

IMHO, you should be able to charge just about whatever you wish.  If the contractor did have the patience to see the job through to replication, at the valley club, for example,  I bet you'd get it there.      

[TEPaul]

MikeC;

The bunker work at Brookline was done inhouse or at least the detail bunker work was done by TCC's super and maintenance crew.