Should British Open (Colt) courses go back to sand faced bunkers?

[Ally Mcintosh]

I've dug this one back up because I'm experimenting with a couple of styles at present.

I think one of the main problems (aside from wind) on a sandy site is that you need to create a lip that holds the sand in the bunker. If the site has little organic topsoil and therefore is pure sand just under the surface, you cannot create that lip easily without it just crumbling away unless you hold it with rough grasses.

This leaves you with a few options. Personally I like to leave the face natural and rough edged with long grasses on the side that backs in to the rough but for green side bunkers, centreline bunkers and the near-side of other bunkers that I want to be mown as fairway right up to the edge, it is harder to get a finish unless you use / transplant / sprig rough grasses on to the face… In other words, without using sod walls at least in places (and these can be mixed with sand faces but then just stacked two or three high to create a lip), I think it is hard to create a bunker face that transitions straight from short grass to sand. And I like that. I like the rough, natural faces as well but not as islands surrounded by short grass on all sides.

Thoughts? I could do with hearing other experiences, especially with lip creation on pure sand sites…

Thanks,
Ally

[Thomas Dai]

Interesting thread, which I seem to have previously missed. Some wonderful old photos on the earlier pages.

As to bunker faces, I seem to see more players walking up the face to exit a bunker than ever before. Perhaps my vision is improving or maybe standards are dropping. Either way, I reckon this is an aspect that needs design/construction consideration.

atb

[Frank Pont]

Ally,

I would suggest you follow the 100 year old wise words and drawings of Mr Colt on how to build bunkers:



The creativity of the process is how to deal with vertical part of the face in different sub soils.

At Touquet, with no topsoil, we use revets. At Tandridge with quite heavy topsoil it wasn't necessary.

[Thomas Dai]

Frank,

That's a fascinating HSC typed up sheet you've posted.

You mention on the Portrush thread - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59466.0.html - about Colt not having a D6 and this being "a huge advantage".

Do you have any photos that you could post or link to of Colts bunkers being constructed? There's the Muirfield photo in the World Atlas of Golf shown in post 40 above (Colts work?) but I'm curious to know what kind of kit/equipment would Colt have used on his other or later jobs.

atb

[Ally Mcintosh]

What's most notable about that Colt typed up sheet is he is referring to sod faced bunkers as a primary method of construction.... Or certainly the lips made from sod stacks (i.e. semi-revetted bunkers)

[Sean_A]

Ally

That is what I was thinking.  In essence, that write up isn't about flashed bunkers, but a compromise of sorts.  I wonder if Colt wrote this after experimenting on a windy site? 

Frank

Have you seen any old pix of original Colt holes with the rolled over grass look as seen at Portrush?  I don't see this look very often in GB&I, but I find it the most attractive bunkering if there is any concern about keeping sand in the pit.  I see it sometimes on American parkland courses, but it doesn't seem to have quite the right look as we see at P'rush. 

Does anybody know how the bunkers at Aberdovey are holding up?  I thought that style was very interesting for flatter links.  I ws there a good few years after they were built ad they were holding up quite well.  They look like erosion will be a problem, but up to then, I didn't see any signs of collapsed faces. 

Ciao

Ciao

[Frank Pont]

What's most notable about that Colt typed up sheet is he is referring to sod faced bunkers as a primary method of construction.... Or certainly the lips made from sod stacks (i.e. semi-revetted bunkers)

Ally,

The LIPS were (sometimes) revetted, never the whole bunker face, big difference.

I have never seen an old picture of a completely sodfaced (revetted) bunker that was built by Colt

[Frank Pont]

Ally

That is what I was thinking.  In essence, that write up isn't about flashed bunkers, but a compromise of sorts.  I wonder if Colt wrote this after experimenting on a windy site? 

Sean,

Have a closer look.

The only part which he talks about (sometimes) being revetting is the upper 6-8 inches of the bunker, or effectively what we call the lip.

Look at the cross section in the lower part of the drawing. Only the vertical part would be revetted, the rest would all be sand

[Frank Pont]

Sean,

the revets at the top of the sand face are necessary on very sandy sites with hardly any topsoil, such as dunes or heathland areas. In those places the lip will collapse over time because the sand under the grass lip will not be stable. Therefore you put some revets under the lip to make it stable.

I have used this construction method at Le Touquet but also Copt Heath.

[Frank Pont]

Frank

Have you seen any old pix of original Colt holes with the rolled over grass look as seen at Portrush?  I don't see this look very often in GB&I, but I find it the most attractive bunkering if there is any concern about keeping sand in the pit.  I see it sometimes on American parkland courses, but it doesn't seem to have quite the right look as we see at P'rush.  

Sean,

No I have never seen an old picture with that look, maybe Paul Turner has them?

I actually think you see it in many links courses. Kennemer has bunkers like that, Royal Hague has been trending that way.

What you see is incremental growth of grass down the bunker faces. If you do not maintain bunkers grass will grow down a face at a rate of 3-5 inches per year. Which means that unless you stop it, it will go down the face.

You can clearly see that that bunkers at Portrush originally has higher sand faces. They were probably partly lost by incremental creep as discussed above (this happens on EVERY course) and by the fact that the current grass lines keep the sand in the bunkers (wind erosion).

Funny enough wind erosion isn'tas big an issue as most people think, with the modest sized Colt bunkers. At Royal Hague we only had 1-2 serious wind erosion problems on 27 bunkers in the course. And those most of the bunkers have much higher sand faces than at Portrush

[Thomas Dai]

Does anybody know how the bunkers at Aberdovey are holding up?  I thought that style was very interesting for flatter links.  I ws there a good few years after they were built ad they were holding up quite well.  They look like erosion will be a problem, but up to then, I didn't see any signs of collapsed faces. 

Fine when I was there a couple of months ago. I asked around if they'd had any problems with them and no negatives were mentioned by the folk I spoke with. I liked the shaggy bunkers, they seem to say "I'm a hazard, don't come close.....or else!"
A couple of examples -


atb

[Cristian]

Sean,

the revets at the top of the sand face are necessary on very sandy sites with hardly any topsoil, such as dunes or heathland areas. In those places the lip will collapse over time because the sand under the grass lip will not be stable. Therefore you put some revets under the lip to make it stable.

I have used this construction method at Le Touquet but also Copt Heath.

Frank,

I find this technique fascinating and was unaware of the use of revetting early (pre 1930) 20th century. Was this actually the first use of this technique? It is interesting how Colt does not use the term but explains the technique as 'laying sods like bricks'. This would indicate few people knew of this method. Also I thought I read somewhere on this site that revetting only really took off after WW2, but perhaps it was used already on a smaller scale?

Do you have any pics of a bunker constructed that way by you? How widely is the technique used (apart from restored or Colt originals)? It seems to be THE solution for (Colt) courses not wanting to go sand faced because of fear of erosion. One would expect more Colt courses to adopt this technique, as it seems not very expensive to maintain, every so many years the revetting probably has to be redone, but if it is only a few layers. Has this method also been used at Haagsche 16? or would it have been a solution? I recall you mentioning erosion problems causing them to lower the sand face, or was this due more to  water erosion after heavy rain because of the position of the bunkers?

[Ally Mcintosh]

Hi Frank,

I know he is referring to the lips. This was really why I brought the thread up again. Because I was wondering if there were other ways (aside from semi-revetting using sod for the lips) to create good lips on sandy sites with poor topsoil without using rough grasses on the faces.

I feel better knowing that Colt used the same method.

[Frank Pont]

Sean,

the revets at the top of the sand face are necessary on very sandy sites with hardly any topsoil, such as dunes or heathland areas. In those places the lip will collapse over time because the sand under the grass lip will not be stable. Therefore you put some revets under the lip to make it stable.

I have used this construction method at Le Touquet but also Copt Heath.

Frank,

I find this technique fascinating and was unaware of the use of revetting early (pre 1930) 20th century. Was this actually the first use of this technique? I thought I read somewhere on this site that revetting only really took off after WW2, or was it used already on a smaller scale.

Do you have any pics of a bunker constructed that way by you? How widely is the technique used (apart from restored or Colt originals)? It seems to be THE solution for (Colt) courses not wanting to go sand faced because of fear of erosion. One would expect more Colt courses to adopt this technique, as it seems not very expensive to maintain, every so many years the revetting probably has to be redone, but if it is only a few layers. Has this method also been used at Haagsche 16? or would it have been a solution? I recall you mentioning erosion problems causing them to lower the sand face, or was this due more to  water erosion after heavy rain because of the position of the bunkers?

Christian,

here are two pics of this bunker construction method used at Le Touquet last winter on hole 11.





On your questions:

Revetting of COMPLETE bunker faces only took off after WWII (you read that in an article Paul Turner and  I wrote for GCA Mag)

Patrice and I have used it in Touquet and Hardelot. In the UK I have used it in Copt Heath, Broadstone, Tandridge etc. Effectively anywhere where you have sandy soil with little topsoil. It is very suited for links courses, that's why Paul and I argued that the Brittish Open courses with a Colt heritage should go back to sand faces.

We have not tried this at Royal Hague yet, but might well do so in the future.

[Cristian]

Sean,

the revets at the top of the sand face are necessary on very sandy sites with hardly any topsoil, such as dunes or heathland areas. In those places the lip will collapse over time because the sand under the grass lip will not be stable. Therefore you put some revets under the lip to make it stable.

I have used this construction method at Le Touquet but also Copt Heath.

Frank,

I find this technique fascinating and was unaware of the use of revetting early (pre 1930) 20th century. Was this actually the first use of this technique? I thought I read somewhere on this site that revetting only really took off after WW2, or was it used already on a smaller scale.

Do you have any pics of a bunker constructed that way by you? How widely is the technique used (apart from restored or Colt originals)? It seems to be THE solution for (Colt) courses not wanting to go sand faced because of fear of erosion. One would expect more Colt courses to adopt this technique, as it seems not very expensive to maintain, every so many years the revetting probably has to be redone, but if it is only a few layers. Has this method also been used at Haagsche 16? or would it have been a solution? I recall you mentioning erosion problems causing them to lower the sand face, or was this due more to  water erosion after heavy rain because of the position of the bunkers?

Christian,

here are two pics of this bunker construction method used at Le Touquet last winter on hole 11.





On your questions:

Revetting of COMPLETE bunker faces only took off after WWII (you read that in an article Paul Turner and  I wrote for GCA Mag)

Patrice and I have used it in Touquet and Hardelot. In the UK I have used it in Copt Heath, Broadstone, Tandridge etc. Effectively anywhere where you have sandy soil with little topsoil. It is very suited for links courses, that's why Paul and I argued that the Brittish Open courses with a Colt heritage should go back to sand faces.

We have not tried this at Royal Hague yet, but might well do so in the future.

Thanks!
The bunkers look great and very much resemble the pics of Colt originals on this thread. Hopefully more clubs will start adopting this method.

[Frank Pont]

Christian,

there is no reason not to use this method on all Colt courses, and that includes BO courses such as Hoylake, Lutham and Muirfield, where the bunkers looked like this until WWII.

I do not think this will be pushed by the R&A brass, but hopefully a number of visionary Greens Chairmen (who maybe follow GCA from the side lines) will emerge who get it at these classic Colt clubs.....

[Ally Mcintosh]

Tell me Frank - Are you just using local sand compacted on the faces at Le Touquet?... And is the sand holding on those faces without causing erosion under the bottom layer of sod?

[Frank Pont]

Tell me Frank - Are you just using local sand compacted on the faces at Le Touquet?... And is the sand holding on those faces without causing erosion under the bottom layer of sod?

Ally,

well spotted, that is actually one of the tricks of the trade.

It is vital to go deep enough with revets and get the slope angle right so that the lip remains stable and the face sand can be splashed against it.

[Patrice Boissonnas]

Let me add 1 comment regarding this partial revetting technique for building bunkers in the sand: it is harder to achieve very suttle edge lines with the revetting compared to a simple cut out bunker. Not impossible but it takes more care and attention and can sometimes be slightly disappointing : the more steps you add in the making, the more risk you have to lose some of the shapes you envisioned. It is very important to supervise the men who will lay down the sods since for them a straighter line is always easier than curves.