Closed Week Closing Out

It's been a long, hard, productive week at Bernardo Heights Country Club.  The members returned to the course today to meet some sandy greens, some renovated bunkers, and many signs of work in progress.  The most common quote from returning members, "You've been busy."  Yes we have.

More work continues today as we put the finishing touches on the bunkers on #8.  The front bunker saw the most changes.  The front edge was moved away from the green by 4 feet, close to the original dimension of the bunker.  Over the last bunch of years, the edge has creeped in and up making a narrow and very deep hazard.  We removed over three feet of sand to reach the original grade and then added over a foot of clay to reduce the severity of the slope and produce more playable floorspace.  The existing drains worked well, so after packing down the clay, we hand dug down to the old drains and added new drainage right on top.  The view is much different, nearly doubling the amount of sand visible from the fairway.  It might just make somebody think twice of going for a tucked pin.

The back bunker actually had a entire sub grade full of large crushed rock making a vault style drain that was covered with liner.  Changing this design would have taken more time than we had, and since it was still functional, we regraded to remove high spots, tacked down the liner, and added our sand.  

Both bunkers are now more player friendly and have fresh sand that will allow for properly played explosion shots.  They will be just like our other renovated bunkers on holes 5-7 after the sand is matured and compacted over time.  We used a vibratory plate compactor and a decent amount of water today to pack down the sand.  It will get the same treatment a few more times to reduce fluffiness and fried egg lies that is commonly associated with new bunkers.

The contractors have finished up the tunnel connections and are now tying these into our existing mainlines.  We planned on moving on to #5 today, and still will this afternoon, but first must finish our connection through the first tunnel.  Starting tomorrow morning, we will have well water supplying every hole besides number 5 and 6.  This is ahead of schedule due to a change we made yesterday to the configuration.  A good change in hindsight, saving money right away.

This project is rolling along and the BHCC staff still has a mountain on it's plate so stay tuned for more updates as we work to make the course better on a daily basis.