Winter Repair & Maintenance

If you had to guess, what part of the golf course would you say received the most attention from the turf department?  The bunkers here at Claremont are far and away the most labor intensive feature of the golf course.  Making these bunkers look and play the way they do is a major focus year around for the maintenance staff.  During the winter months keeping the bunkers in shape and looking good is even more challenging.





GREENSIDE BUNKER LEFT OF #4 GREEN "BLOWN OUT"

 

SAME BUNKER AFTER REPAIR WORK



 With the winter comes the rain and it's during these heavy rain events that we see the damage to the bunkers in the form of washouts, puddling, and sand contamination.  What's important is that the bunkers are repaired correctly to avoid a build up of silt and soil in the white bunker sand.  Typically following a rain event the first step is to remove any sand that is contaminated with silt and/or soil out of all the bunkers.  Then the process of putting the sand back up on the faces begins and much of this work is done by hand with shovels.  The last step is to rake out the entire bunker to break up the compaction and help to allow the wet sand to dry. 

 





FAIRWAY BUNKER #18 WASHED OUT

 



SAME BUNKER AFTER REPAIR WORK

This process of repairing bunkers can be quite time consuming and labor intensive dependant on the severity of the storm.  Keep in mind there will be times when we don't have enough staff to properly repair all the bunkers immediately following a given storm.  The staff in the turf department will do their best to get the golf course back in shape following the winter storms and I thank them for their hard work in the bunkers this winter.