I first saw them used in North America in Canada a few years ago at Devil’s Paintbrush. I just played Secession in South Carolina last week and they use the artificial turf in all their bunkers and love it. You wouldn’t know unless you look closely.
Secession was the one I thought of. When it was built they used real sod for the bunker faces, only to find out they had to replace them every three years -- they were not happy about that! They were first in line for Eco bunker when it came out.
I have had the thought for several years that this could be the new style of design everyone is craving -- for someone to get really creative at shaping faux-sod faced bunkers and run with it. 99% of the bunkers that are built are round and boring, but there is plenty of room to do more. The problem is that the Eco bunker material is very stiff and inflexible for making shapes, and it's very time-consuming to build each bunker, so usually the work is left to the maintenance crew long after the shapers who had the original idea are gone.
Tom, I thought given your prescient thought above you may like to see the following from Adam Lawrence's GCA site re. The Inspiration which is about to open nr. London (a M&E design)
https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/new-links-inspired-golf-course-to-open-in-london-in-june-2024
Cheers
Perhaps I missed Tom’s comment above previously.
What I will caution against is that you can easily get
over-creative with sod-wall bunkers in 3D.
What I mean by that is you need to be relatively simple with the top-line movement otherwise the austere and obvious faces look a little incongruous and wavy. I have see M&E and other architects fall foul of this on some links renovations whilst trying to inject more artistry.
My experience has showed me that the artistry is best brought in 2D: Bring interesting shapes in with the outline of the bunker (bottom sod) and then be very exact in a simpler but elegant top-line.