" Sand Capping" in Arizona

[Steve_ Shaffer]

The "active adult" residential golf community where I live  now has 3 18 hole courses. The original course, designed by Keith Foster, opened around 1992-3 and now does about 45,000 rounds/year.. A renovation is planned for 2020 as the original irrigation system is technologically obsolete and has required  significant funds to repair during the past 3-5 years. Besides the  irrigation system, the other items listed are Capillary Concrete  bunkers/new sand and green renovation/expansion with new Bermuda greens( probably an ultra dwarf but not Champion) replacing the old Bermuda greens. No new fairway grass is planned. The problem is, as many( including the project architect) have pointed out, is that there are newer and better Bermuda fairway options that can be used AND that the fairway soil is, for the most part, highly saline and according to the USGA local agronomist it is the second highest in AZ. The 3 items previously mentioned are estimated to cost about 4M. The " sand capping" of 14  fairways and regrassing them at about 4" is estimated to cost about another 1M. The proposed solution , in order not spend another 1M, is sanding the fairways about another .5"/year. Is this solution feasible? In other words, if we spend the 4M and the fairways come out not so good, will we be overwhelmed with complaints?


http://www.usga.org/course-care/turfgrass-and-environmental-research/research-updates/2017/how-does-sand-capping-depth-and-subsoil-influence-fairway-perfor.html


http://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/usgamisc/resup/2017-02-03.pdf




To Architects and Supers : What say you?

[Tom_Doak]

Your main question is really an Agronomy question so I'm not qualified to answer, except to say that if you do a big renovation and the fairways suck, someone is going to lose their job over it.


I jumped on to wonder about capillary concrete in the bunkers.  I thought the main sales point for it was the easier clean-up after big rain events.  But how many of those do you have per year in Arizona?

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Tom,


Thanks. I questioned the use of Capillary Concrete and similar products as bunkers are hazards so why spend big bucks on them. A decision was made to use them on our 3rd course, the back 9 of which was built about 8 years ago with no bunker liners and the new front 9 that will open next month. The developer is still in control here and Capillary Concrete was installed on the new 9's bunkers at the developers expense. The back 9 was turned over to the HOA when it opened and the HOA paid for new liners there this past summer. So they were selected for our 1st course . We're in the West Valley of PHX and our average rainfall is about 6"/year. However, many courses here have upgraded to bunker liner systems for better drainage after years of silt build up.  although I just learned that WeKoPa did not use them this past summer when they renovated their bunkers. Our golfers here want better bunker conditions.

[SB]

Are the fairways a problem now?

[Matthew Petersen]

As Steve said, we don't get much rain in Phoenix (6-7 inches on average for the year, typically), but it does tend to come in large bursts. We get severe monsoon storms in the summer with heavy, hard rain over a short period of time and then in the winter we get sustained heavy rain as well. Most areas don't drain very well so these storms do tend to do significant damage and erosion.


Now, I know almost nothing about bunker construction, so whether CC bunkers are a good solution, I don't know. But I can certainly vouch that while there are relatively few storms that come through, those that do hit tend to wreak havoc on bunkers because they do tend to be strong.

[Steve Okula]

Do the sand capping (no quotation marks necessary) in the construction phase, if it is at all economically feasible.

The soil probably became saline due to high salt content in the irrigation water, a common occurence in arid climates. If you have saline conditions the fairway sand will allow flushing out the salts and make the situation manageable from the start. Trying to add sand little by little over the years means you will always be behind the curve managing salt conditions. A half-inch/year means eight years to arrive at the whole 4 inches.

I witnessed Golf National in Paris initiate an intensive fairway topdressing program. It took the topdressing machine eight hours/day, five days/week to topdress all the fairways once per week for six months to gain 15mm (about 5/8") of sand for the year. That was with very light play. If you're doing 45,000 rounds/year, you'll find precious little room in there to be driving the big fairway topdressing equipment up and down the fairways all day every day.

Either way, you'll end up paying the same for the sand, and if you add the cost of equipment purchase, fuel, maintenance, and labor for a never-ending fairway topdressing program it's probably a push which would method would be more expensive, and  capping in construction would be less disruptive to play.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Who is the project architect?
What is the newer and better fairway grass option?
What is new greens? The grass only? What happens in the expanded areas - extending the cavity? Or rebuilding all the greens?


I look into fixing the irrigation source and not the fairways - assuming you could remedy the soil chemistry.
What was the old irrigation rotor spacing?
What is the new irrigation rotor spacing?
Was the fairway turf good at some point? - which would indicate it may not be the rotor spacing


What does technologically obsolete mean?
Do you currently have single head control?


Good luck.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Steve,


I would do it in construction.  Not sure how the same amount of sand top dressed in over 4 years would be any cheaper than doing it in proper sequence.


One note, not all sands are equal.  At La Costa, sand capped for similar reasons, we found a cheap sand and a more expensive one.  However, the expensive one could be laid at the 4" depth, the cheap one required 6", owing to a different "water release curve."  Go too shallow with the wrong sand, and you will have mush, even in the desert. 


Also recommend perforated drain tile every 100 feet or so. Also, "feathering out" edges, vs cutting a dish adds significantly to the sand quantity and must be considered which way to go.

[Randy Thompson]

Steve,
 The only sound advice I can give you is, if the powers to be, which I am assuming is a board of directors, have doubts, than get a second opinion. They seem to understand the importance of working with professionals and are doing just that. There are just too many factors to be considered that have not been revealed to make any final conclusions. We can ASSUME many things, such as, proper soil physical testing has been done by a credited laboratory and their recommendations are to create four inches of capping. Jeff is correct about the water release curve and the two projects that I was involved with that capped, the labs were recommending 16 inches for one course and twelve inches for the other. We don´t know just how high the ph is in the soil or the water source. The carbonate content is also important. What is the primary soil and corresponding drainage characteristics. What has been going on the last 20 plus years? For example, if the salts and carbonates were high was a sulfur burned used to treat the water? Was a vertidrain used for several times a year to help flush out the salts during the little rain that the area receives? Was gypsum applied twice a year? As Mike pointed out, lots of bad soils can be chemically altered or one can inject an acid-based fertilizer in these situations directly into the irrigation system and by pass a lot of soil chemistry. If the soil and salinity is so bad that they need to sand cap, have there been any trials with paspalm for a fairways grass or even for greens. You could change fairway grass a lot cheaper than capping fourteen fairways.                                                                                                                  Capillary concrete in an area that receives six inches of rain a year seems like an over kill but if the membership has had a chance to evaluate it on the other course and there is a notable difference that there willing to pay for, so be it! Has the sand ever been changed in the last 20 plus years? Do you have a lot flash bunkers, that erode and contaminate the sand with fines from the native soil?
Your two professionals most likely have taking into consideration these factors and are making recommendations based on those findings. If the board is skeptical of those findings by all means get a second opinion from another qualified consultant! A couple of grand more for a, four to five million dollar investment, seems logical to me.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

The next meeting of the Board  is November 21 and the Renovation Task  Force  is scheduled for November 28. We will find out if there's room over the 4M set aside in our Reserve Fund for this project. I doubt it as a special assessment would be necessary. " Assessment" is a dirty word here as the developer is still building houses  and that's bad news to disclose to a potential buyer. I'll keep you posted.


Thanks to everyone who has posted so far.

[John Emerson]

I’m not sure about the climate in this part of the country, but I too, am skeptical about CC.  As all the “sand and stone” bunker bottoms of the past, they will crack and need replacement.  Question is will you get your moneys worth by this time.  I have seen installation of every type of bunker lining method known for golf....they all fail eventually. 

[John Emerson]

As far as sand capping goes....it sounds like the soil is the absolute number one issue here.  Switching grasses is NOT the solution.  Addressing soil health is the number one priority.  Changing grass is, more or less, putting a band aid on a compound fracture. 

[John Emerson]

Steve,
I’d send as many soil samples as possible to the closest soil lab....preferably at a university.  I’d like to see the results honestly

[Gary Sato]

Steve,
 The only sound advice I can give you is, if the powers to be, which I am assuming is a board of directors, have doubts, than get a second opinion.

Agree on that. The problem is some superintendents and architects get pissy about it.


I've seen these people fall in love with ideas or concepts and they are blind to other factors that would influence a sound decision.  I watched a course a few years ago built in sand with sand pushup greens use an architect who insisted that the greens needed to be rebuilt using USGA spec. So they cored out pure sand to install gravel and the works of a USGA green. It's been a disaster.