Bunkers Bunkers Bunkers!

Hi, I'm sorry its been such a while since my last blogpost. I don't mean the 'drop in communication' it just seems that there aren't enough hours in the day to get what I want to do done. The year is flying by and I cant believe its nearly August already, and i'm sure you'll be disappointed when I say I am already thinking about Late Summer/Early Autumn greens renovations. I wish I could get them done now, as this is the ideal time for recovery from either hollow tining/Gradening (Or even both!!) Some courses are already aerating, and they should see extremely good recovery within 7-10 days and full recovery within 2 weeks. Surely this time of year would be better? When a lot of people are away for their summer holidays? All it needs are a few fixture changes, and, hey Presto! You've got yourselves greens playable again by mid August! Anyway, I'll leave that to discuss between yourselves for a while.
I've entitled this post 'Bunkers Bunkers Bunkers' for a reason. For a couple of months now I have had people complain to me that there is no sand in the bunkers, and that sometimes they are unplayable, and, after trying my best with them, I would be inclined to agree with you. However, not as many bunkers are 'sandless' as you may think! After having a week away with the family I have had a chance to think about things a little, and the amount of rain we have had over the last 18 months or so. I originally thought that we may have a drainage issue in some of them, which is then compacting the sand, and making it seem like there is no sand to play from. I also thought that the material on top of the drainage pipe getting blocked with silt and contaminants which will not allow the water through, or at least slow it down. So, a couple of us managed to find some time today to look at a small one that has always concerned me, which sits with a puddle in for a while after rain, and which has become contaminated with stones and also suffers from wash down' (sand washing down off the face) the bunker I am talking about is the left hand pot bunker on 13.

 I know that this probably isn't the bunker that is most short of sand, however it is one that has been mentioned to me on more than one occasion.We started to scrape the sand out off the face and it was unbelievable how many stones came up from out of the face. This has always been a stony bunker, and when it was first built I remember laying turf (grass side down) to line it and to stop the stones coming up through the sand. This, after 10 years+ has deteriorated from the face, however it still remained in the base.  I must say as we worked our way down into the base of the bunker, I was amazed at the amount of sand in it!

There was easily 10inches of sand in there that can only be described as 'compact' and contaminated from the base below. One of the things that hasn't really shown up on the photo as good as what i had hoped was the distinct layers of sand from when it has just been 'topped' up with sand. We have used exactly the same sand which have exactly the same particle size which in theory is perfect working practice. However, what has happened is the sand has become so 'thick' on top of the drain that no wonder it is taking the water such a while to get down! And dont forget the longer the water sits on top, the more compacted the sand is getting, the more chance the sand particles have of getting contaminated.
We removed all of the sand, which we estimated to be around 2 tonnes! Managed to find the drain which was covered in a material to stop the drainage gravel getting mixed with the sand. This was covered in silt so we removed it.

We found that the drain looked a little 'deep' so we have raised it a little and the 3rd picture down shows you what it looked like when we finished. I have since added another 'spur' off to catch any water falling to the right of the drain.

To satisfy a niggling doubt in my mind we then connected a hose to our irrigation and put some water down it to see if we could get it to flood up. The drain works fine.

Right, what have i learned by doing this process?..........................I have learned that in THIS PARTICULAR bunker, there was way too much sand! So much so that, combined with contamination, which has come after all this rain we have been having, this has combined together and stopped the drainage almost by 100%
This is why I have been very cautious in just throwing in sand to 'top up' bunkers just as a short term measure to get members off my back and to stop them complaining for a few months. However, if I did this, certainly in this bunkers case, I would be adding to the problem, and wasting precious money on sand that is going to get contaminated during the next storm! This is something I am loathed to do, so this decision needs to be thought through long and hard, because quite frankly there is no easy (or cheap) way out of this situation.
My next blog post will be about what we need to do to combat this situation.  I feel I have babbled on enough for one night, my wife has already text me twice, she wants a cup of tea! She'll be emailing me next!!
Regards
Leigh