[Nathan Gingrich]

I am at the beginning stages of a master plan and am gathering costs. The course in question sits on a vein of Florida sugar sand and if I can't talk the membership into using native sand traps I am going to need someway to keep the native sand from migrating into the manufactured sand. I have installed the various fabric liners at past clubs and do not personally care for them. I have read about the capillary concrete method of lining but have yet to see it in person. Given the sand based nature of the existing soil has anyone had long term success with a particular process or method to avoid contamination? Thanks for the feedback.

[Alan FitzGerald CGCS MG]

Adam Moeller from the USGA Green Section gave a very nice talk on the various liners at the NJ Turf Expo a few weeks ago - it may be worth contacting him for the benefits/potential issues with the various products.


I've seen and played with most of the liners; After exhaustive research I settled on Blinder from the UK (and ended up having to import & license it in the US). We finally installed it in PA in May of 2015 and it has been performing great.


http://ledgerockgcmaintenance.blogspot.com/2015/06/ledgerocks-new-bunkers.html

[Ben Lovett]

I'm in the same situation with white sand bunkers on top of native sand.
As Adam suggested Blinder would be my choice if budget allowed. I ended up using turf then spraying it off to form a barrier, cheap and cheerful.
There seems to be so many choices these day with gravel/concrete, porous asphalt, liquid polymer and matts. All come in various forms and have been relatively successful if INSTALLED properly
One of the issues I encountered is you have to use specific sand to the methods otherwise you end up with overly wet/dry soft/hard sand

[Adam Lawrence]

Everyone I know who has installed Blinder is very happy with it; it is very expensive though.


Better Billy Bunker seems to be cornering the market in the US.


The geotextile liners seem to have gone out of favour.

[Joe Hancock]

As Ben alluded to, one has to do their homework regarding the relationship between sand and liner. In effect, a Better Billy Bunker, and similar systems using aggregate as the liner will perform much like a mini-depth USGA green construction. The concept behind the USGA green construction is to use that interface between gravel and sand as a way to keep the sand from drying out too fast....and the shallower the sand gets(like in a bunker) the longer it takes to dry out the surface.

[Tom_Doak]

When we were building Forest Dunes there was a lot of back and forth about bunker liners.  There are stones in the native sand and the superintendent for the existing course was very worried about contamination, so we were researching alternative products.  Then the superintendent took a new job, and on his way out, the client happened to ask how many bunkers on the existing course he'd had contamination problems with ... he said five of them [out of about 75].  So we decided not to spend the money to line our bunkers!

[Anthony_Nysse]

Area of the country plays a LARGE roll into this, in my opinion and also construction. Some architects don't like liners because it restricts their "creativity."

[Mike Nuzzo]

I prefer your choice of no liner, but if you are looking for an alternative to the woven fabrics research Bunker Solution:
http://www.bunkersolution.com/main/page_products.html
It is comparable in price to Billy Bunker.
We've used both, among others.
Cheers

[Don Mahaffey]

Multi $100k to keep native sand out of imported sand? It has to be someone's job to make sure EVERYONE paying understands the cost benefit anlysis. 
Or, you could start an endowment with $$$ earmarked for liner and fund a full time position to pick rocks.  You'll probably have 20-30 hrs a week extra manpower. 

[Mark_Fine]

The Better Billy bunker is gaining favor but is not full proof.  There is another new system I just heard about but the name escapes me.  If I can get some more information I will pass it on.

In general we avoid liners if at all possible.  If the bunker is designed properly and has more than adequate drainage, liners are more of a problem than a help.  Generally a dry bunker is a good bunker and if you get the drainage right most of your problems will be solved and you can avoid liners.  I recall talking to my friend Matt Shaffer at a pretty famous course in PA complaining about his liners and saying if the bunkers had been designed "differently", the liners wouldn't have been needed. I agreed with him 😊

[Nathan Gingrich]

Thanks to all for your responses. I guess my concern with using the polymer liners or cement is how they will react with the native sand beneath them. The native sand is not particularly angular so it doesn't pack all that well which depending on your viewpoint is another knock against using it as a bunker sand. There are several very nice clubs throughout Florida who are built on native sand and use it as their bunker sand so the thought of using it is not exactly revolutionary. My guess is once I have the costs for any one of the systems plus trucking in sand compared with utilizing the existing sand the native will sell itself. If anyone has anything additionally please keep it coming.

[Jon Wiggett]

Nathan,

cut yourself some heavily thatched sod and lay it in the base of your bunker inverted. Tried and tested method that will last a long time and is cheap.

Jon

[Jaeger Kovich]

Nathan,

cut yourself some heavily thatched sod and lay it in the base of your bunker inverted. Tried and tested method that will last a long time and is cheap.

Jon

Jon, what are the pros v cons of turning the sod upside down, rather than right side up (with or without round-up)? Do you use sod staples? Do you wait a certain amount of time before you put in the sand?

[Jaeger Kovich]

For all of those recommending the Billy Bunker, or the other porous asphalt types. What is your plan for when the polymer finally breaks down, and you have to remove all the stone?

[PCCraig]

When my home course redid the bunkers a couple of years ago, they used something called Klingstone.


http://www.klingstone.com/

[Mark_Fine]

Jaeger,
As I said, the Billy Bunker has issues as well and you are raising one of them.

The other product I was trying to recall is called Bunker Blinder.  It is made with rubber chips and adhesive. Basically it is mixed and then spread on the bunker floor.  It works similar to the Billy Bunker but is touted as stronger, longer lasting, and safer for golfers.  I have yet to use it at any of my projects but might consider it if forced to use a liner (sometimes the Club/Superintendent overrules the architect). 

[Mike_Young]

sometimes this can be used and then no liner or gravel bed etc....also good for cart traffic...Army used it for roads in the deserts...
http://www.polypavement.com/

[Jimmy Cavezza]

What does the native sand look like?  Better yet, how does the native sand mixed with the manufactured sand test?  This will eventually be the end result without liner and if it is acceptable it will make construction and maintenance easier and cheaper!

[Anthony_Nysse]

http://www.tacomaturf.net/2013/02/urgent-do-not-go-into-bunkers.html?m=1

[Joe Hancock]

http://www.tacomaturf.net/2013/02/urgent-do-not-go-into-bunkers.html?m=1

And good looking bunker work to boot....

[Jon Wiggett]

Nathan,

cut yourself some heavily thatched sod and lay it in the base of your bunker inverted. Tried and tested method that will last a long time and is cheap.

Jon

Jon, what are the pros v cons of turning the sod upside down, rather than right side up (with or without round-up)? Do you use sod staples? Do you wait a certain amount of time before you put in the sand?

Jaeger,

no need to use staples if the sods are cut thick enough and long enough. Only advantage to laying inverted is no need to spray the turf to kill it off. There is no need to wait to put in the sand.

Jon

[Nathan Gingrich]

The methods involving grassing the floor of the bunker sound good but Bermuda will grow in concrete. We have to spray it with a 10% solution of round up two to three times to kill it. I would worry the bermuda growing back through the new sand.

[Jon Wiggett]

The methods involving grassing the floor of the bunker sound good but Bermuda will grow in concrete. We have to spray it with a 10% solution of round up two to three times to kill it. I would worry the bermuda growing back through the new sand.

Nathan,

I should have maybe qualified my comments with the fact that my experience is entirely with cool season grasses and that I know diddly squat about warm season grasses. Taking your comments on board, you would probably need to spray out regardless of how you laid the sod.

Just out of interest, are you saying that Bermuda will grow entirely based in concrete with no other source of nutrients other than rainfall or that it can survive with very little organic matter found in cracks?

Jon

[Nathan Gingrich]

John,


The short answer is yes. Bermuda grows like a vile weed compared with any cool season turf. It grows in concrete not finely maintained but grows. I have problems with it growing through weed mats and out of bulkheads. Guys that have some of the newer varieties have to edge heads weekly or they will get grown over. Thus my concern for that particular method.


Nathan

[Don Mahaffey]

It doesn't have to be Bermuda sod, it could be any grass type, and it doesn't have to be live sod, it can be sprayed with a cocktail (your sod supplier will have a recipe that works in your area)
Keep in mind when we spray out Bermudas to make a turf conversion it is the native commons that seem to resist the herbicides. A hybrid sod that is clean should not be hard to neutralize.


If you have to use a liner to separate native sand from import this sure seems like a way to go vs the liner options previously mentioned that were developed to deal with drainage issues. They are expensive and best used where imported sand is over a heavy native soil.   In your case a simple barrier is all you need and the sod option looks good to me.

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