The new bunkers

Finally the new bunkers were opened last week. It has taken longer than we first thought the bunkers would take to root and be ready for play. The main reason for this is the cold start to spring. 

We have also spent many man hours working on sand depths and trying to compact the sand and establishing a the turf surrounds the right standards.

Here we are checking the levels in the sand to make sure they are consistent

High areas were marked with circles and low areas were marked with the letter L

Then we healed in and watered the bunkers to compact the sand down. (If you imagine the tide going out on a beach) 

Again these were then tested and levels adjusted. We then had the sand levels at the spec provided to us by the course architect but after the playing tests we felt that some of these areas still had  slightly high levels of sand so we then lowered these areas again. 

We ended up removing another three trailer loads. Then again the levels were checked, compacted and played from.

We then felt they were ready to be opened to the members but we will welcome feed back as we want these bunkers to be right. We will listen to all feed back and then take the average level of sand. Remember some player like high levels of sand as they like to 'dig' the ball out and some players like low levels of sand the they can 'clip' the ball out.

 

I think these new modern looking bunkers look great and are strategically in better places. Also they have improved the look of the holes they are on making them more pleasing on the eye but not my score card!