[Michael Dugger]

Having "built" a few bunkers myself I am quite familiar with the process.....in general.

However, can someone give any insight into how, for example, Jeff Bradley or Gil Hanse goes about "building" their lacey-edged creations?

I'm thinking French Creek, Cuscowilla or the inland Friar's Head holes.

Kudos
     

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Michael,
Thanks for being different then others and wanting to keep this website Golf Architecture related.  I fear if I click on any more of the OT threads, my head might explode.

Gil utilizes fescue sod to layer the edges and it eventually gives it that great looking broke-down look when it matures.

The finished product looks like a Tom Simpson sketch--rough, knarly and beautiful.

[Michael Dugger]

Tommy,

So.....do they do it much like Thomas back in the day?  What I mean by that is actually sod over the edges first, establish the turf and THEN go back and cut/rip away the edges to give it that irregular look and feel?

I remember Bill Coore talking about ripping clumps of grass from one of the Hidden Creek bunkers.  It sounded like much the same technique as I read about Thomas doing at places such as Riv and LACC.

[Anthony_Nysse]

I know at Friar's Head, We dug out the relative shape of the bunker and seeded it in the fall, came back in the spring, painted lines and actually cut out the sod that wasn't going to be used on the edge...if we didn't like the edge, we used chunks and iron rods to support the pieces and drive them into their place.

[Duane Sharpe]

Michael
Having just finished the bunkers at Rod Whitman's Blackhawk, I can tell you that we shaped all the bunkers with a rubber tire backhoe and several shovels first. Then we seeded all the edges  of the bunker with a small hydroseeder attached on a trailer and pulled with a tractor. In the hydroseeder, we mixed water, sheep's fescue, hard fescue, and chewings fescue with a starter fertilizer, and hydromulch(made of newspaper clipppings and dye). We applied the mixture to all the steep faces and about 1 meter around the edge of the bunker.  The mulch is quite sticky and attaches really well to most soils. This gave us a very good catch on most of the bunkers especially where we had  irrigation water.  Due to our dry summer in 2002, we had to re-apply another application of mulch on some faces to help with establishment in 2003.  None of our bunkers were sodded in our grow-in process.  
Next season,we went in and re-shaped the edges again removing any stray grass and weeds.  Once they were established, we then added our sand.
I have some great pictures of our application from the summer of 2002. If I knew how to post them on here, i would.  If you would like me to send some pictures, please email me at sharpee2@shaw.ca and I will gladly send some to you.  It is great to see the before and after results.
super

[Michael Dugger]

Super....in your opinion what is/are the positives and negatives in hydroseeding vs sod?  

Is it the variety of grasses?

Thank you all for chiming in here.

I have another question, though.  Can someone who is familiar with furry edged bunkers please settle once and for all the maintenance issue.  I hear so much talk about how difficult they are to maintain, thus the reasoning behind the more sterile Augusta Nationalish bunkers.  

[Mark_Fine]

Making hazards look natural is easily stated but hard to do in practice.  Natural looking hazards take time and “time” being the key word.  Some of the best looking natural bunkers built today are first roughed in, some seed is tossed around and then they are left alone for an extended period of time.  When the bunkers have grown in and aged, more work is done on them and the edges are finished to get them ready for play.  

[Mark_Fine]

Regarding the maintenance question - Architects like Bill Coore believe that natural looking bunkers can actually require less work than clean edged bunkers.  I agree with him in that the best bunkers are often the ones that aren’t maintained.  For many of their bunkers, they recommend little mowing as possible, no use of mechanical bunker rakes, just left in a natural state.  Maintenance can spur on more maintenance.  

[Don_Mahaffey]

Michael,
IMO, the greatest advantage of seed over sod is the ability to pick and choose the exact seed mix desired. Sod producers simply can't grow every type of grass needed and where a special mix is needed seed is often the best way to go.

[TEPaul]

This is a great subject to discuss. I wouldn't presume to know the entirety of how these guys today who do these really fantastic looking natural bunkers go about it altogether although I have watched those such as Kye Goalby, Jim Craig and Gil Hanse do some shaping and others like Rodney Hine, Jim Wagner, Bill Kittleman and Jeff Bradley and some others do that wonderful finishing and grassing work. It seems to me there're a handful or more architects and their crews that are doing this really great naturally looking bunker work today.

[Norbert P]

 Micheal,  I tried calling around this Spring for fescue sod but it seems to be unavailable in our area (Oregon).  I ended up seeding in fine fescues for a new lawn.  (No bunkers though, sorry)

 I have another queswtion on bunker construction - involving the soils...
  "Is rootzone soil amended with higher clay content, for water retention and form integrity, or just left as consistant with surrounding topsoil?"

BTW Michael (or anybody else), Have you played the new Eagle Landing Pitch n Putt yet? (William Robinson) It's a hoot. Bentgrass greens. $12 for 18.  Takes less than 2 hours.
It's located at the old NLE Top o' Scott GC.
I played it on opening day hoping to set the course record - figuring that's the only way I'll ever do that. Alas, I was not "Low Round for the Day".  

 

[Jeff_Mingay]

Of course, shaping the bunker - both the surrounds and the cavity - to appear "natural" is of first importance. I just took a bunch of decent photos of the ones we built at Blackhawk GC over the weekend, but I don't know how to post them!

Another neat trick is to strip sod from a native area, stack it on the top edge and surrounds in haphazard fashion, then hydoseed. The seed will catch and germinate in those nooks and crannies between the broken pieces of stripped sod. If I'm not mistaken, this is the trick Hanse and Wagner used to great effect at French Creek.  

[RJ_Daley]

Jeff M., that approach works very well in the west, prairie sandy soils, etc.  But really, it only stands to reason that construction technique must vary by climate, soil, and styling.  I don't believe that Bunkerhill, Jeff and Rod, Gil, Jim and Geoff, or any of the C&C guys that aren't Bunkerhill cross overs will use the same technique in tight heavy soils in the northern clay-loam area that they would in the Sand Hills.  It is great to have those native areas of interesting plants and consistency to rip up and stack, and seed the nooks and crannies.  But it ain't going to work if you are doing some like Tommy just posted in Palm Springs by Schmidt and Curley, or working on Thomas's at Riviera.  

I have to imagine that the more crucial matter is the core, floor shape to drain, and slope to lips to divert water.  In a way, the edging seems like the artsy fartsy stuff you add at the end.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Dick,

You're right, the shaping is the first key step. The grassing then creates the aesthetic.

I've not worked in the desert, but Doak and co.'s bunkers at Apache Stronghold, for example, are pretty natural and rugged looking, aren't they? [I'm going to take a look at Ran's photos right now.]

And, Talking Stick North has some great looking bunkers, with a rare look for the desert. Artsy-shaping and neat grassing.

[Duane Sharpe]

I just wanted all of you who emailed looking for pictures, that I am creating a link that you all can check them out without having to send them to each of you.
Thanks
Super

[TEPaul]

On the subject of bunker construction the bunkers of a course such as Fox Chapel, particularly some of the green-side bunkers, are something to behold and to imagine.

Many of those grass bunker faces are enormous and virtually vertical. It really is hard to imagine how they got or can get the sod to remain on those grass faces they're so steep and vertical.

Unfortunately, the deluge that happened at Fox Chapel on Monday answered some of those questions. The answer obviously is it isn't that easy as a portion of the sod face on #8 slide right down into the sand.

I did ask the super, Dave Carson, how in the world he got the sod to stay on those faces at all, and, as I suspected, he said with some REALLY LARGE PINS that may be more like small metal bars!!

[Philippe Binette]

The answer is relatively easy on how to built cool bunkers...

Great Shaping and a lot of hand work...

There also a major difference on the equipment you use.
Many architects are doing the rough shaping with dozers and then are using wood slats to built the edges with very ordinary results esthetically.... (saves time) The end result is often a hole in a mound which looks often unnatural.

Or you can rough-shape the large scale contours of the site and dig the bunkers from the ground with an excavator. Bunkers are connected to the site that way. It takes more time, more experienced hand-labor but the result is 10 times better, especially for flash-up bunkers...

Some architects are trying to built flash-up bunkers because they look cool, with a bulldozers-only shaping and then making forms in the shaping... In this regard, Doug Carrick as achieved an all-time low with his stupid looking bunkers in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Battlefield course.

Result, the flash-ups are disconnected to a shaping that is disconnected from the site... Nice job.... Talking about a Great Canadian architect...

 




 

[TEPaul]

Phillipe Binette:

This wouldn't be some vestige of that on-going adverserialness between English and French Canadians would it?  

I have a feeling we might hear from the definitely unfrench sounding Ian Andrews on this one!

And furthermore, would you say that Canadian golf architecture possesses an identifiable "French bunker look" vs an "English bunker look"? And if so, would you say the "French bunker look" posseses more passion, sensuality or perhaps joie de Vive compared to the "English Bunker look" which may be labeled as more staid and conservative in look and nature?

[Duane Sharpe]

I hope this works, but you can click on the following link to access some of my pictures from construction at Blackhawk Golf Club in Edmonton, Alberta.

http://www.hpphoto.com/servlet/com.hp.HPAlbumPict?com=us&awp=albumshow.html&album_id=4164441

They are in no order but you can get a glimpse of how we mixed the seed in our hydroseeder and how it is applied.  There are also some pictures which Jeff Mingay took last week while visiting Blackhawk which shows the completed look.
Super

[Duane Sharpe]

Let's try this again.

http://www.hpphoto.com/servlet/com.hp.HPWelcome?com=us&awp=memberwelcome.html

[Duane Sharpe]

I give up.....I will send the photo's to Mike Nuzzo to post for me.Sorry
Super

[Mike Nuzzo]

First off...that was one hell of a course.
Thank you super.
The remaining Banff Boys had a great lunch with Rod Whitman as well.  That was worth the trip itself.

Here are those images:


11th during hydroseeding

15th during hydroseeding

15th fairway

15th green complex

10th

It looks like Rod on the right, and I'm not certain.

4th green, fescues pre trimming

7th approach

7th middle fairway bunker

Tricky uphill approach to the 10th

Approach from the middle bunker of the 4th.  Nice hole.

Super please correct me if I've made any mistakes.

Will comment more later.

Cheers

[Jeff_Mingay]

Hey, those last two photos are mine! Can I sue Duane Sharpe for a copyright violation?!?!

Great photos of the hydro-seeding, Duane! They give an interesting perspective on how the bunkers look just prior to seeding. It's an interesting comparison between those "dirt" photos and the "after" shots of the surrounding grass grown-in.

As you can see, some imperfection in the dirt is good.

And, for those interested, that is Rod Whitman on the right in that middle photo, with John Cavanaugh, who did a lot of work with us on the bunkers at Blackhawk.  

[Tom_Doak]

I learned how to build bunkers with a bulldozer when I worked for the Dyes, but it was a great leap forward to do them all with a trackhoe when we got to Pacific Dunes, and I'm a big believer in that now.

By doing them with a trackhoe, you don't have to disturb any of the top edge of the bunkers, leaving the native seed bank in place so you'll get little sprouts of it even if you hydroseed them to a grass blend.  And the trackhoe has the reach to throw the spoils out of the bunker if you want, so you can blend it into the fairway instead of carting it all away.

I have never learned how to run the trackhoe myself; no point when I'm surrounded by guys who are great at it.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom,

We shaped the bunkers in similar fashion at Blackhawk, but with a rubber-tire backhoe actually. [I've since used a small-ish trackhoe to shape bunkers, and prefer that machine to a backhoe, too. It's more versatile, I think.]

Using the backhoe, we cut bunkers into natural hills and ridges. And, where there wasn't originally a natural feature to cut into, Rod would shaped a hill or ridge with a bulldozer, then we'd do the same - cut a bunker into that feature.

It's easy to "bowl" the bunker cavity using a 'hoe. And to create a thick upper lip. But never underestimated the handwork required following the 'dozer and 'hoe work. That's most important [as Tom knows].

We also blended the spoils into the surrounding areas to create interesting bumps and contours, here and there. In fact, I can't think of one instance in which the spoils were carted off the golf course.  

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