Soil testing is cheap insurance. I remember a big bunker renovation at a private club. The project involved rebuilding 40 bunkers. The owner decided to purchase (and assume the responsibility for quality control) all bunker sand. We installed many feet of bunker drainage on the bunker floor, and we made sure our slope laser worked. The bunker forms looked great and we installed the sand at a uniform six-inch depth. A few months later, seven bunkers had poor drainage and it wasn’t our fault.

A post-installation bunker sand test showed that the sand vendor changed the product halfway through the project. The vendor changed sand pit locations and the new pit had sand loaded with fine silt. The vendor never told the superintendent, and the sand color didn’t change, so the superintendent assumed that all the loads were as quoted. The vendor, new to the golf industry, didn’t know about bunker sand nuances.

We replaced all the bad sand and the superintendent kept his job although he told everyone about the sand fiasco. The sand vendor doesn’t sell to golf anymore.

I always do a batch sample test of root zone mix and bunker sand. Drive over to the pit-I know it takes time-and grab a sample with your own hands. Don’t rely on vendor supplied reports that always show good news. Do your own tests and sleep well.

I remember driving to my course during a foggy August morning and seeing the sun rise over a fairway killed by pythium. Another time an unforeseen rainstorm delivered six inches of rain on  fine-graded fairway creating washouts that could hide a school bus. You sure learn from these events; I learned to prevent conditions that cultivate pythium and create grading forms that slowed water down.

So what happens when you encounter a golf course horror show? Don’t hide. Your communication skills will help diffuse the situation while enhancing your reputation as a task manager able to counter any natural calamity. Your members will respect you for telling them what’s going on. I’m sure most of them encounter crisis during their personal and business life and most will understand that you are exposed to risks while working with turf and golf construction.

Use the following checklist to develop a response about a crisis.

• Identify the primary problem and solution. For example, your decision to skip a fungicide spray resulted in a dead fairway. Next time you will spray.
• Identify the underlying problem and solution. An inferior irrigation system could have created the dead fairway turf by creating drought-stressed turf that couldn’t tolerate adversity.
• Combine the primary and underlying problem and create a response sentence used to explain your predicament.

Use a response statement when spreading the bad news. Walk by the first tee and say hello. Call your green chairman or owner and tell them the news. Don’t sound wimpy. You have two or three sentences to get your point across. In this case, the response statement should say: “Some drought-stressed turf on hole #7 suffered damage last night. I’ll overseed the damaged area and we should be in good shape in a few weeks but our outdated irrigation system created this situation.”

A well designed response statement proves your ability to analyze the situation while creating additional ammunition for your long term management program. It includes the bad news along with your remedy and timeline.

Golf course bunker floors vary from flat to highly-contoured.  I’m a proponent of gently sloped bunker floors that encourage gentle subsurface water flow directed toward drain pipes. Flattish bunker floors collect water or drain water slowly because they don’t have subsurface slopes.

Bunkers built by bulldozer during the 1970’s and 1980’s often suffer from flat bunker bottoms. These bunkers usually have drainage problems along with stone encroachment into bunker sand. They were built by pushing out earth, forming a flat surface then clean bunker sand was placed on top of the exposed gravel. These bulldozer cuts often scraped away good soil leaving a gravel layer with bunker sand added in uneven levels.

Often seen on municipal golf courses, these flat bunker bottoms require major reconstruction to fix. After we create a new bunker floor with a rounded shape, we add subsurface drain pipes along with 6 inches of silty material to form a stone barrier. Another option involves bunker liner installation but I’ve found that the costs are similar for both processes.

After we shape the bunker bottoms, we strip about 10 feet of sod around the new edge. On most of these courses, dramatic bunkers look out of place so we construct low and slow features that provide a clean, yet aesthetically pleasing sand hazard. By gently pitching the bunker floor we improve sand visibility while maintaining a subtle appearance.

When visioning a bunker renovation, start with rounded bunker floors, then add character mounding as needed.

Bunker removal begins with a site assessment. You will replace the bunker with a flat surface that looks natural. The filled-in area should blend in with surrounding fairway and rough grades.

The project scenario:

• View the bunker from all sides. Visualize what a flattening will do with surrounding grades. Expand work limit so you remove all existing bunker forms. I know, this will increase the work limits and increase cost, but if you keep a remnant of a former bunker grade you will regret it. It’s common to remove 3 or 4 times the bunker floor area in total work area.
• Look for surface drainage flow patterns and irrigation impacts. Don’t create a water pocket or divert water from properly functioning surface flow. Stub existing bunker irrigation and watch out for valve boxes and sprinklers; raise or move as needed.
• Install wooden stakes on proposed work limits, and adjust as needed. If you can’t determine the surface water flow by eye, use a laser. If you are filling in a bunker that has strong mounding, you may want to incorporate some of the fill into a subtle mound.
• Paint out final work limits, and remove sod. You may want to save existing fairway sod. Using an excavator, or backhoe, scrape all the bunker topsoil and stockpile nearby. Leave the bunker sand in place, it’s not worth the trouble moving it out. To prevent settling, install solid fill in 8″ lifts (layers) and compact with excavator tracks. I usually build these fill areas strong by adding a six inch crown to allow for some settling. Surface the final 6 inches with topsoil.

The removed bunker should provide joy to golfers, while reducing your golf course worry list.

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The permit process will define pond project construction processes. It’s important to include commonsense work procedures into the permit so work will be done in an efficient manner.

Pond projects include the following procedures:

• Silt fence and hay bale installation. Do it exactly by the plan. Don’t argue with anybody about this detail. I’ve seen huge projects delayed by a few misplaced hay bales. Some engineers take it personally when you don’t install silt fence properly. Install the bottom of the silt fence in a few inch slit to permit sediment retention.
• If you will do a wet excavation, or dredging, be sure to accommodate any wildlife issues. This may involve fish relocation.
• Use tight equipment without leaky hydraulics. An oil sheen will quickly stop work.
• Consider using a flexible float system for on-water excavation. These floats, readily available for rental, are metal boxes with latching capability that allow an excavator to sit, dig, and freely move through the work site.
• Plan dewatering pump size and discharge schemes. If the pond will be drained, be sure discharge clean water downstream by using a sedimentation bag or filtration basins. Sedimentation bags built of permeable geofabric fasten to the discharge pipe end. Filtration basins filter water with several rows of haybales.
• Be sure to dig to design grades. Marine engineers have procedures to identify digging depth. They can measure the length of the excavator arm and establish elevations off this mark.
• Pond dredging efficiency includes moisture management. If the excavator loads a bucket of water laden spoils into a truck or trailer you will quickly have an unmanageable mess. A sensible scheme allows for spoil dewatering on a pond bank permits the material to drain before stockpiling. After a few days, transport to final dump location.
• Spending time creating a neat pond bank, or exposed edge, will finish the pond project and allow a smooth pond edge. For safety reasons, be sure to construct a safe slope, not a sharp drop-off into the pond.
• Consider using pond spoils for topsoil. It may be full of organic elements that produce nice loam when mixed with drainage sand.

Also see Small Pond Dredging Project.

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Sedimentation and invasive plants adversely impact pond storage. The first step in a comprehensive pond renovation is to find a competent wetland engineer who will identify the following:

• Current pond topography and volume.
• Pond structure. Does it have a clay or synthetic liner?
• Pond water sources. Is it spring fed? Or fed by streams, or wells?
• Overflow structures. Determine design efficiency and condition
• Pond bank conditions.
• Applicable wetland laws, permitting processes and construction scenarios.

If the pond supplies irrigation water, then golf course managers will provide daily irrigation needs based on typical watering cycles. This information will help the engineer calculate pond volume and renovation criteria.

The engineer will develop a plan showing current topography. Next, they will create a new construction drawing based on the previously discussed criteria. This plan will show new design grades along with erosion control and pond mechanicals like sluiceways or discharge pipes. Also, they will develop a written construction sequence and cost analysis for your review.

Permitting can take over six months or longer. A capable contractor can help in the process by adding construction methodology to the discussion.

More information: Small Golf Course Dredging Project

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I’ve seen a few contractors ruin subsurface grading and drainage piping by jamming tee rootzone mix without any concern for tee subgrades and piping. They try to increase production by doing the following:

• Driving a truck or trailer over the tee subgrade (the surface under the tee mix). Good construction methods  incorporate the tee surface slope into the subgrade because this allows a true mirror image of the tee top slope while insuring positive  subsurface water flow. A tire track or two will disrupt this sheet flow and crunch the drainage pipes. Note: we always install subsurface pipes under tee mix.

• Plowing out the tee mix with a bulldozer without any compaction technique.

We use these methods to install mix:

• Establish subgrade and finish grade stakes on the four tee corners (assuming you want a square tee). Calculate the amount of tee mix needed and transport this volume  to the edge of the new tee. Stack the mix in a big pile on the edge of the tee. Don’t drive a truck or trailer over the tee edge. When the pile is complete, plow out a few inch lift of tee mix over the subgrade floor.

• Plow out another lift ( a lift is an even spread of soil i.e. a six inch lift) or two to establish design depth. This process creates even compaction-the dozer or excavator tracks do a nice job with this.

• Run a few strings connecting the four corners, and add or subtract mix as needed.

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I had to fill in for a crew member last week and I spent the whole day driving a John Deere tractor and dump cart. After a few weeks straight looking at a computer screen it was nice to see green grass and birds.

The tee expansion project involved the conveyance of 375 cubic yards of fill a distance of one mile. I did about 12 cubic yards per hour; or three round trips.  Moving fill on an existing golf course is quite expensive; most people don’t understand the expense.

The Pronovost trailer  P-516 holds 4 cubic yards. I’ve bought a few of them and I love talking to the Canadian manufacturers. As soon as you say the word golf, they mention this model. This sturdy cart has a nice hydraulic dump and heavy tailgate. An optional tailgate with a chute is handy when backfilling drainage ditches with sand. It’s big enough to move along golf cart paths without causing damage.

Big, bouncy turf tires insure that no turf damage will occur. The only problem is wet turf. I had a wild-and-wolly ride a few years back when I lost traction on a wet golf course.

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Engineers do a great job presenting complicated construction concepts to wary authorities. They push permits through with fancy graphics, fat response documents, and slick presentations.  The problem occurs when they include foolish construction processes in the documentation, and this complicates the work creating additional expense for the contractor.

Golf course construction managers and superintendents should insist on procedural oversight during the permitting phase of golf course work. Insist on an active role in construction planning and include a friendly golf course contractor in the project meetings.

Be wary of know-it-all engineers who want to exclude golf course managers from the planning process. We all know that golf course work is specialized, and an engineer with a passing interest in the sport will rarely know how to describe golf work. I’ve seen a few projects where the contractor generated a large, justifiable, change order after an engineer added a nonsensical construction procedure.

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Pond maintenance dredging involves the removal of plant material and  soil spoils from a wetland. Dredging has been done for thousands of years, and the process can be expensive and messy. Here’s a few suggestions:

• Hire a wetland engineer to develop a project scope and process permits. Make sure they include input from a dredging contractor so they will know how to  describe the work and plan  erosion control. I’ve seen beautifully engineered plans and narratives result in unworkable construction processes. Dredging contractors are then forced to work in an unfamiliar method.
• Keep it clean. This sounds easier than reality. The best scenario is to load the muck into a self-contained (non-leaky) trailer or truck and dump it in its final resting place. You will need to pay a driver and machine time for the trailer, and loading is very slow. Make sure the material is dewatered before loading or you will have a soupy, unstable load to convey to the dump. A rake works better than a bucket for obvious reasons.
• If you can’t load directly, then load on the bank and let the spoils dewater for a few weeks.  Make sure the permitting engineer is on-board so you don’t violate an environmental rule or two. The best dewatering scenario  has a sloped bank so the  excess water drains into  two rows of heavily staked hay bales. In a few weeks the spoils will turn to dryer  material that will be easier to clean from turf.

These pictures show a small dredge job done with a small excavator mounted on a  flat barge with two paddle wheels used for propulsion.

After the operator scooped muck with a six-foot rake, he paddled over to the edge of the pond and dumped the spoils. He trailered the barge to the pond edge, and he completed his work in three days.

The spoils were neatly stacked on the edge of the pond. We trucked out the material and the turf looks good.

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