Maintenance Seminar Wk 3 - Comparative Maintenance Practices

[George Pazin]

People often throw out things on here like "Those scruffy bunkers are pretty but must cost a small fortune to maintain," and "The Augusta Syndrome (manicured perfection) is the root of all the problems in golf".

So where does the truth lie?

Are scruffy bunkers more difficult to maintain? More costly?

How does it compare to manicured perfection?

(I've always thought that the photos Sean Arble and Paul Turner have posted of UK courses indicated much saner maintenance practices over there - maybe that will be a future topic).

Interest on these threads has been okay, though I don't think I have too many topic ideas left, so they may have a relatively short shelf life.

[Adam Clayman]

George, A valiant effort and I wouldn't let any perceived lack of participation by the masses as any indication of the threads quality. After all, these threads are suppose to educate them. The next time you read a member inaccurately describe dormant turf as dead, you will have an easy  resource for them to read.

As for the topics on this thread, I know it's likely too general to specify but Josh Mahar's bunkers at Wild Horse are of the scruffy nature. In the spring they are their most benign. In the fall, they are their nastiness. That leads me to believe they receive very little, if any, extra maintenance.
Nature takes care of it over the winter re-creating the benign. Hopefully Josh will see this and confirm or deny my suspicions. If the scruffy make-up is tumble weed, I know they are almost all gone by spring.

The ANGC syndrome is likely a whole series of topics on it's own. From the perceptions affect to the attempts to control nature's influence. I find it all fascinating on a humanistic level. You know, monkey see monkey do syndrome.

[TX Golf]

A question that I correlates to a few of these maintenance practices. How much effort, time, and resources are spent to maintain fescue in the proper manner. It should be there to assess a penalty, but it should be thin and wispy enough to also try and advance the ball back in the fairway or towards the green. What maintenance practices are used to accomplish this. Is it cut??? Are the large weeds/bushed removed by hand?? I am just interested in how this is done. Thanks.

Robert

[Adam Clayman]

Robert, Would native be a better description of the areas you are asking about? Fescue is misleading to me. 

But, I've seen a lot of weed whacking in the last three years. Being diligent and getting to the plant before it seeds would seem like a key to minimizing re-occurrence.

[TX Golf]

Adam,

Sorry that was a fairly general term. When I say fescue I am talking about the foot or so long grass that frames holes (native as you mentioned). It can be such a gorgeous framer of a hole without being to Penal. I have played many courses where it is thin and playable, and others when it is just a mess. Here is a picture of the type of grass I am discussing. I find this example to be a good example because it is playable.

[TEPaul]

George:

This is a wonderful thread and I'm going to be on it. The answers to the questions you ask are definitely not easy and they certainly aren't simple but when it comes to cost/maintenance, playability, membership satisfaction etc, etc, they are fundamentally important questions and answers.

These kinds of questions go right to the heart of why clubs do what they do and if they really understand how it will all play out in the end of over the short and long haul.

I know a number of these issues and items myself because of what my own club and I have been through in this way over the recent years. It all kind of gets into that great adage; "To know what you don't know" but the reality is how in the world is anyone going to actually know what they don't know?

The easiest answer I've ever seen is found in simply collaborating with clubs and committees who have gone before what you're trying to do at your club and learn from their mistakes and their lessons that you can't forsee for all kinds of reasons before you get into it and do it on your own.

Every day, I am reminded of that saying; "I wish I knew then what I know now." 

[George Pazin]

the dreaded self bump...

I was really hoping at least one super might help out on this one.

[Jerry Kluger]

There is a Smyers course in my area, Four Streams, which has what I would call scruffy bunkers and initially they allowed the grasses around the bunkers to grow very long.  It looked great but it made it nearly impossible to play a shot out of those grasses and dramatically slowed down pace of play.  They are now kept much shorter and this still gives the sought after appearance without the previously noted downsides.

By no means do I have the expertise of a superintendent but my two cents would be that  long grass around bunkers can be very difficult to maintain.  When I look at a course like Shinnecock it appears that the long grasses off the fairway remain untouched and allowed to grow to their natural height - I tried to play out of it and it is quite a challenge just to get a wedge on the ball.  On the other hand, long grasses around bunkers are nearly always planted after the bunker is built so it is a created feature.  That being said, to me, it has to be maintained.  Maintaining it can be time consuming because it has to be done by hand and not by a mower.  I would guess that these grasses when kept relatively short grow at the same rate as other grass.  Plus, it would be nearly impossible to fertilize the bordering grasses without fertilizing this grass - same thing with watering. 

I remember playing Dismal River when it just opened and they had not adjusted the watering patterns so the native grasses just off the fairway were incredibly thick but those a few feet back were natural and far more sparse. 

My opinion would be that maintaining these grasses can be more labor intensive and more expensive to maintain when they are around bunkers.  I could be way off on this and would love to hear from a superintendent to tell me how wrong I am.

[George Pazin]

Thanks for the input, Jerry. I understand your point about hand maintenace, but I would have thought that a lot highly manicured bunkers would also require hand work, unless the bunkers are relatively shallow or flat.

I'm still hoping one of the supers will straighten us out.

As for the series, I will have to start the next thread tomorrow or Wednesday - I'm having major computer problems and only posting sporadically. The next topic will be about grass types for greens - how do you find the ideal combination of smoothness and speed, etc.

[Steve Okula]

O.K., here's a super chiming in.

Are scruffy bunkers easier or more difficult to maintain?

Standard GCS answer, "It all depends".

If you have sandy soils in a benign climate with some wispy fescue, then the bunker will look after itself.

If you have bermdagrass in a tropical rainforest, then you will have your work cut out for you, either way.

I manage a course where the "scruffy look" would fit perfectly with the architecture, but we don't do it. We've tried, but we are cursed with a rich,  clay, topsoil, a mildly cool climate with plenty of rain, and pasture grasses galore. Wherever we let the grass grow up, it quickly becomes an impenetrable, ball-eating,  matt. So with a few exceptions for out-of-the way areas, we keep the bunkers manicured, mowed and trimmmed around the edges.

To achieve the proper scruffy look here, we would need to change over the soil around the bunkers, and re-seed with fescues. But for a membership averse to disruptions, this is more trouble, and much more expensive, than carrying on with the present maintenance.

I remember visiting Las Vegas a few years ago, at Royal Links, where they were attempting to emulate links style holes, and there was a woody weed called "salt cedar" that was throwing them fits.

So bunker maintenance is a function of various factors, including climate, soils, species, budget, and golfer expectations.

[JSPayne]

Ok George, here's some bunker fodder for you, simplistically from my own personal experiences. I can't speak to all bunker types, or all course maintenance practices for such hazards, but I have experienced quite a bit of diversity in my somewhat short career thus far, so that should speak to how wildly varied possible responses could be. Here's what I've experienced:

Higher-end private course of DOG design with scruffy (read: fine, chewings, red fescue) bunker lips and mowed tight lower bunker edges. Maintenance basically consists of weedeating the tightly mowed bottom edge to keep a manicured appearance and using a recepricating blade (like circular scissors) attached to a weedeater to thin out the scruffy lips without creating too manicured a look. An average number of complaints are had on a regular basis, even with maintenance, regarding the scruffy lips. Some people just don't like losing their balls on/in/around a bunker.

Lower-end private course with bermuda grass and simple oval shaped bunkers with smooth edges. Maintenance consists of weedeating the edges on about a monthly basis during the growing season. To help reduce the frequency of this maintenance, a plant growth regulator (PGR) or even a light rate of Round-up just along the interior edge can help reduce growth and stop bermuda runners from entering the bunker.

County-owned municpal course with bermuda and simple oval shaped bunkers. Weedeat around edges every other month but spend excessive amounts of time pulling or cutting bermuda runners out of the interior of the bunker. Also, bunker edges usually have to be completely redefined once a year (with shovel and blade) due to growing encroachment shrinking the bunker size.

My current course is a high-end public with manicured bunkers with fingers that reach down the faces. Maintenance consists of weedeating edges once a month and walk mowing the fingers twice a month. I plan on using PGRs next year to try and reduce the frequency of this practice.

My conclusions regarding bunkers (in answer to one of your questions) at this point would be that all consist of more or less the same maintenance, however.....any manicured bunkers with grass fingers require more maintenance due to the labor that has to be done by hand (can't mow with a riding mower) and bunkers with a scruffy appearance tend to take more maintenance unless the right combination of grasses is used along with an understanding membership. I believe scruffy bunkers on the perimeters of holes (like at Sand Hills, Ballyneal, many UK courses.....) work much better as they tend to blend in with the native areas and expectations are lower for their maintenance.

We'll see if I have time later to write more on "Augusta syndrome" vs. what many here would refer to as the "UK/linksland look."