US Courses with sod faced bunkers?

[Jeff Schley]

Was reading the write up on Golf.com site about Corica Park and their picture showed a sod faced bunker. Is this an artificial ecobunker i'm guessing?





I don't recall seeing a US course with actual sod faced (revetted) bunkers, anyone know of any?

[Ally Mcintosh]

Yes, that’s artificial turf used for the face.

[Mark_Fine]

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. 

[Tom_Doak]

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.

[Thomas Dai]

I think I’ve mentioned it previously but is time coming when we will see pre-fabricated, off-site built ‘drop-in’ bunkers? Bit like garden fishponds. Maybe with drainage and even irrigation points already built-in?
Atb

[Steve Burrows]

Curiously, they have installed a handful of them at Brickyard Crossing in Indianapolis. This decision creates an odd tension with the existing bunker aesthetic.

[Anthony_Nysse]

They have these at The Medalist & The Baths @ Blackwolf Run. I think TPC Sugarloaf, too.

[Brian Marion]

Tennessee National and Tiburon have a few.


Both GNGCD layouts.

[Ian Andrew]

Moles destroy sod wall faces if they get snow covered.

[Andy Shulman]

Also Raspberry Falls, a Gary Player design outside of Leesburg, VA.  In addition to those on the course, the course's website claims that the short-game practice area includes a stacked sod bunker.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Given GBI supers tell us they need to rebuild natural sod faced bunkers every few years, I think eco-bunker and whoever copies them probably have a viable solution for that design style.  When I priced them a few years ago for a project, it was like $4.50 per LF, and those strips are only 4" high or so.  Thus, a one foot tall grass face was over $12 per running foot, and some of those as seen in the photo above would be really expensive.  Of course, to me "really expensive" is defined as something above what my then client wanted to pay. 


I will guess the price will come down at some point, and it will be like bunker liners, what starts at higher end courses will be common in 5-10 years, and almost standard in 10-15.

[Tom_Doak]

Moles destroy sod wall faces if they get snow covered.

Is that true for the artificial turf walls as well?  Or just real sod?

[Pete_Pittock]

Arcadia Bluffs

[Tommy Williamsen]

Musgrove Mill tried in on the bunker on the sixth hole but gave up after a couple of years. It worked perfectly there on the hill. I guess it took a lot of upkeep where it was.

[Tom_Doak]

Musgrove Mill tried in on the bunker on the sixth hole but gave up after a couple of years. It worked perfectly there on the hill. I guess it took a lot of upkeep where it was.

Sod faces will rot away after 2-3 years in the heat and humidity of the South.  [They last a bit longer up north.]  Most likely Musgrove Mill just gave up when it rotted, instead of spending the $ to rebuild it.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I’m not sure many here realize it, but the grass lips and edges of the bunkers at Winged Foot, Baltusrol Lower, Les Bordes, Merion, Aronimink, Pinehurst 4, Streamsong Black and the majority of Gil’s bunkers are built with 3-6 pieces of revetted stacked sod. Most of the time it is done w fine fescue. Sometimes Bermuda in the south. It definitely evolves. How long it takes to entirely break down is always different.

[Tom_Doak]

I’m not sure many here realize it, but the grass lips and edges of the bunkers at Winged Foot, Baltusrol Lower, Les Bordes, Merion, Aronimink, Pinehurst 4, Streamsong Black and the majority of Gil’s bunkers are built with 3-6 pieces of revetted stacked sod. Most of the time it is done w fine fescue. Sometimes Bermuda in the south. It definitely evolves. How long it takes to entirely break down is always different.

Why is that?  Just to create a lip, instantly?

[Adam Lawrence]

I’m not sure many here realize it, but the grass lips and edges of the bunkers at Winged Foot, Baltusrol Lower, Les Bordes, Merion, Aronimink, Pinehurst 4, Streamsong Black and the majority of Gil’s bunkers are built with 3-6 pieces of revetted stacked sod. Most of the time it is done w fine fescue. Sometimes Bermuda in the south. It definitely evolves. How long it takes to entirely break down is always different.

That's the use to which EcoBunker is most often put -- the full-on revetted walls are only a fairly small subset of their work. Harley Kruse did some pretty cool Melbourne Sandbelt type bunkers on clay soil at Killara GC in Sydney using EcoBunker to form the edge.


See [size=78%]https://ecobunker.co.uk/ecobunker-enables-sandbelt-style-bunkers-on-clay-at-sydneys-killara/[/size]

[Jaeger Kovich]

I’m not sure many here realize it, but the grass lips and edges of the bunkers at Winged Foot, Baltusrol Lower, Les Bordes, Merion, Aronimink, Pinehurst 4, Streamsong Black and the majority of Gil’s bunkers are built with 3-6 pieces of revetted stacked sod. Most of the time it is done w fine fescue. Sometimes Bermuda in the south. It definitely evolves. How long it takes to entirely break down is always different.

Why is that?  Just to create a lip, instantly?

- It gets you that fescue eye-lash if you use fine fescue in the stack and blue or turf-type rolling down to the edge.
- If you are good at varying the stacks throughout the edge you can create different shadows and textures and give the edge more interest than when most guys just  go chop a 6 inch edge all the way around the  bunker.


You can certainly do these things without the revetting by good finish work, attention to detail and creative grassing, but thats what they prefer.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I’m not sure many here realize it, but the grass lips and edges of the bunkers at Winged Foot, Baltusrol Lower, Les Bordes, Merion, Aronimink, Pinehurst 4, Streamsong Black and the majority of Gil’s bunkers are built with 3-6 pieces of revetted stacked sod. Most of the time it is done w fine fescue. Sometimes Bermuda in the south. It definitely evolves. How long it takes to entirely break down is always different.

That's the use to which EcoBunker is most often put -- the full-on revetted walls are only a fairly small subset of their work. Harley Kruse did some pretty cool Melbourne Sandbelt type bunkers on clay soil at Killara GC in Sydney using EcoBunker to form the edge.


See [size=78%]https://ecobunker.co.uk/ecobunker-enables-sandbelt-style-bunkers-on-clay-at-sydneys-killara/[/size]

Eh - That  EcoBunker stuff is way more sterile and smooth. Looks much harder to vary the stacks... with real grass you can go up/down much more freely and mix up the grasses for more texture.


Clay, sand, whatever... the courses listed above run the gamut of soils and turf types.

[JJShanley]

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.

My club in Scotland built perhaps 20 ecobunkers (or equivalent) in 2018 or 2019, before I joined. I believe we used an outside company to build them.


With respect to creative shaping, we predominantly built circle/oval bunkers, but has a few that are kidney-shaped and one that looks like a shamrock. We've now gone back to natural grass sod wall bunkers because it can be done in house given that we hired someone who has extensive experience building them at a nearby course.

[Niall C]

Jaeger

Apologies if I'm being a bit obtuse but presumably there is a layer of natural turf on top of eco bunker layers ?

Jeff

Re how long a sod wall lasts, this is something I've debated with Ally a number of times and I disagree that they need renewed quite as frequently as he and others state, but then is does come down to how far you let the wall face degrade before you revett it back to what it was. That's where the Open plays it's part and especially since they started going back to St Andrews every 5 years and revetted every single bunker to make them pristine before the big event. To my mind that is where the 5 year shelf life came in.

When I think of some of the links courses where I've been a member my "favourite" bunkers ie. the ones I tended to go in frequently, weren't revetted as frequently as every 5 years.

Niall

[Niall C]

JJ

Are you suggesting that the eco bunkers have been replaced ? If so, why ? I thought these things were meant to last indefinitely.

Niall

[JJShanley]

Hi Niall,


To clarify: I think we're trying to rebuild all the bunkers over the coming years. We're keeping the Ecobunkers that we've installed, which are fine as far as my untrained eye can tell, but we're not using them again going forward.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Jaeger

Apologies if I'm being a bit obtuse but presumably there is a layer of natural turf on top of eco bunker layers ?

Yeah that is correct...  its the "meat of  the sandwich" that is stacked that is the fake stuff. And that is where the erosion happens or where you can get that fine fescue eye-lash I mentioned.