Questions About Colt Bunkers In Grow-In Stage

[Bradley Anderson]

The bunkers below represent two different Colt bunkers in various stages of grow-in. Not sure where these are, but they are in identical situations.

Let me state the obvious first:

It appears that the bunker cavity was cored out with the spoils being thrown up to shape the hummock. So the raising of the ground is directly proportionate to the culling of the ground. This is very key, I think, to how a bunker appears natural. For nature works the same way: nature builds with material that is close at hand. In the dunes, the sand on hummocks, generally comes from an adjoining cavity, with the top of the dunes hummock held together with native vegatation that grows in irregular clumps. In the dunes there is what we might call a direct proportionate  balance between cut and fill at every feature.

Now the grassing is where this gets really interesting:

Theses hummocks appear to have been topdressed with a layer of sand and then planted with plugs of grass that were dug up from another source, possibly on-site, or possibly a nursery. In the top photo you can see that the plugs have been spaced every foot or so in a soil that appears to be sandy.

In the bottom photo we can see that the plugs have grown up and spread sideways. There was nothing especially inventive about this process, because it was basically happening in nature. People who lived along beaches might have even used this method to control the Sahara effect - this might been ancient common sense stuff?

I want to say that these were fescue plugs, but fescue generally does not grow sideways, to knit in like this, very quickly. My guess is it might take over two years for fescue plugs on 12-18 inch centers to come together with the kind of density that we see in the bottom photo.

Does anyone out there know for certain what species of grass might have been used for these plugs?

And also, do you think I am right in suggesting that the hummock was topdressed with a layer of sand before it was planted?

These may seem like simple observations and questions, but I think they are valuable to know.

[Paul_Turner]

These are from St George's Hill around 1912-1913 (top one the 10th?)....plugs of heather rather than grass

[TEPaul]

I'm not sure I've ever seen a bunker with vegetative surrounds that looks like that bottom photo (so that's heather, is it?). It sure looks like the place to be is in the sand and most definitely not in the vegetative surrounds. Not that different really from the playability of some of the current Merion East bunker surrounds! 

[Tony_Muldoon]

Let me state the obvious first:

It appears that the bunker cavity was cored out with the spoils being thrown up to shape the hummock. So the raising of the ground is directly proportionate to the culling of the ground. This is very key, I think, to how a bunker appears natural. For nature works the same way: nature builds with material that is close at hand. In the dunes, the sand on hummocks, generally comes from an adjoining cavity, with the top of the dunes hummock held together with native vegatation that grows in irregular clumps. In the dunes there is what we might call a direct proportionate  balance between cut and fill at every feature.

Might be obvious to you Bradley, but I think your point is beautifully made.

[Greg Chambers]

Could it be that plugs were used for immediate erosion control, with seed planted in the voids to create the later filled-in finish look?  I've used this method before.

[Bradley Anderson]

Could it be that plugs were used for immediate erosion control, with seed planted in the voids to create the later filled-in finish look?  I've used this method before.

Greg,

You could be right. Do you have pics of using this method?

[TEPaul]

Bradley:

I know what you're thinking about and what you're researching with some of these great threads with some fascinating early photographs you've been putting up recently.

At some point, if you feel comfortable with it, I think you should start talking about the sort of intersect with early maintenance or construction methods and how they effected or conformed to some of the old fashioned ideas or acceptances on playability (and maintenance) and how they may not anymore in our day and age.

Does that make sense? 

[Bradley Anderson]

Bradley:

I know what you're thinking about and what you're researching with some of these great threads with some fascinating early photographs you've been putting up recently.

At some point, if you feel comfortable with it, I think you should start talking about the sort of intersect with early maintenance or construction methods and how they effected or conformed to some of the old fashioned ideas or acceptances on playability (and maintenance) and how they may not anymore in our day and age.

Does that make sense? 

Most of those ideas come from other superintendents who have successfully applied them. I am just beginning to apply them myself, and I need more time to evaluate them.

[Sean_A]

The current 10th at St Georges Hill




Perhaps the bottom pic is #7

I think Paul is correct.  heather is slapped in and around these shots.  The grown looks quite different these days as heather is just transplanted much of the time for the many clubs working on their bunkers/heather regeneration.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"Most of those ideas come from other superintendents who have successfully applied them. I am just beginning to apply them myself, and I need more time to evaluate them."

Bradley:

What I would really like to see you do is track the HISTORY of various architectural and maintenance practices and bunkering is a great place to start.

In other words, the way Merion East's bunkers were maintained in the early teens was very different from the way they were maintained in the 1930s and the way they were maintained in the 1970s was very different from the way they were maintained 1930s and certainly the way they are maintained today is very different from the way they were maintained in the 1970s or any other maintenance practices they have ever had.

When you start considering all this it then becomes completely understandable why Merion East's bunkers have had basically four distinctly different "looks" over the history of the golf course!

And I feel pretty lucky, at this point, to have had Merion's Richie Valentine once explain to me the details of pretty near each one of those distinct eras and looks.