Glen Eagle Maintenance (7/5/24)

Good morning Glen Eagle…

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and had a great 4th of July!

The June rain was plentiful, as 23.04” fell. That almost equals the total amount of rain for all of last summer (25.13”). For comparison sake, last June we had only 8.05” of rain and the June average at GE is 12.19”. We needed it so I am glad to have it, I just hope it slows down a bit for the next two weeks while we are closed for our second summer maintenance closure.

With the help of the rain and a lot of working around wet spots, the course is looking great.

Over the past week there has been some concern with bunker conditions from some of our membership, specifically rock and shell in the sand.

The rock/shell is introduced over time from the native soil below the bunker sand. Most of the rock is introduced when the bunker sand is washed off the bunker face (slope) during heavy rains. Once the native soil is exposed, rocks from that soil are washed into the bunkers.

While that is the most prevalent way that rocks and shell are introduced, they can also come up thru the sand in a process called granular convection (seek link below). Basically, vibrations and in our case, water, cause the larger particles to shift, allowing smaller particles (sand) to move underneath the larger rock/shell eventually lifting the larger pieces to the top. Actually, it’s not so much the rock moving up as it is the sand moving down exposing the rock/shell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granular_convection#:~:text=Granular%20convection%20is%20a%20phenomenon,to%20types%20of%20fluid%20convection.

Just because washouts and granular convection occurs doesn’t mean we just throw our hands up and accept that the bunkers will continue to deteriorate. It simply means we have to do a good job day in and day out (especially during the summer rains) of removing the large rock. Also that , we schedule bunker sand replacement every 5 years or so to keep the shell (particles we can’t remove easily) from becoming a bigger issue.

We addressed the large rocks by training staff to be more diligent and consistent in daily removal.

Here is a picture of #10 green side bunker after our staff has prepared it for play. I would say they are above average condition for middle of summer conditions.

The shell is a bit harder to control and unless we line (a barrier between native soil and the bunker sand) the next time we renovate bunkers, shell and rock will always be, at-least to some extent part of our bunker material.

What we can and have done to help keep our bunkers as clean as possible as part of the reserve study, is schedule sand replacement on a 5 year basis starting in 2025.

I do want to provide some perspective, the pictures below are from another course in town, not mentioning names, and you can see we all have very similar issues. This course’s bunkers are only 3 years old so you can see it doesn’t take long for this issue to show up.

If anyone would like to talk more about our bunkers, please don’t hesitate to give me a call, email or stop by the office. Knowing what it’s important to our membership helps me focus on issues that make the most impact.

I look forward to seeing everyone on the course, and as always, if you have any questions, flag me down or shoot me an email. I always enjoy talking turf!