Chipping bunker improvements

The October bunker renovation on holes 5, 6, and 7 finished with some left over sand.  Part of conducting this work within a seven day window is making sure we have enough product, so we erred on the side of caution.  We stockpiled some bunker sand in the shop for future use and needed to use up what remained.  Most bunkers call for a major overhaul complete with a lot of earth moving.  The chipping bunker just needs some sand to practice shots so it was an obvious choice to be renovated in-house.

The most important part of a bunker is the drain line underneath.  You don't putt on roots, and you don't  play off drain lines, but both are extremely important.  We inspected the exit drain of the chipping bunker and found it to be crushed.  The drain within the bunker was also contaminated and required replacement.  To the left, Jose Luis and Oso pose next to sod over the new drain line while Abel waits in the background.  Seems to me like they are having fun with this.

The overall shape of the bunker is pretty disfigured from many years of sand being splashed up on the face.  We dug out much of this sand, to be used as divot mix, and packed in a new floor with native clay.  Proper construction would require the complete removal of the sand, but that would have taken us all the way to the green and a small project would become a huge project.  We did what we could, providing a much better practice space in the short game area.

The other bunker in the short game area has 3 palm trees growing in the bunker.  We decided to leave this bunker alone to provide examples of the new bunkers and old bunkers to players wanted to practice from both surfaces.