Raining Cats and Dogs (Litter Box Edition)

Well we finally were able to put our new bunker liner system and bunker renovation to the test.  A test that got a little carried away might I add.  Over 5 inches of rain fell just this weekend and a total of almost 7 inches going back to previous Wednesday.

When training employees I often refer to the bunkers as kitty litter boxes while raking, point being we like to keep the sand in the bunkers as you would like to keep dirty kitty litter inside of their box too.  Now obviously this point doesnt really have any value on the topic at hand but had to explain the funny title.

Pictures often explain better than words so here are the results of 6.8 inches of rain on our current bunkers.

 

 

Pictured on Sunday, these older bunkers on 14 and 15 are completely topped off with hundreds of gallons of water.

 

 

The end result is hours of pumping and silt contamination removal.  The silt contamination shown as darker colored mud in lower photo has to be shoveled out.  As it is mixed with the sand it causes the bunker to seal-off and quit draining.

 

 

The newly renovated bunkers has new drainage and more importantly a bunker liner system.  This results in protecting the bunker from contamination caused by wash-outs.  Nearly every new bunker had very minimal wash-outs as shown in upper photo.  But really wanted to point out even with a moderate wash-out in lower photo that there was zero silt contamination which will ultimately increase the life of our new bunkers by multiple years!!!

Finally, the best bunker solution and secret to bunker sustainability is to limit the number of bunkers when possible.  This mound that used to be a bunker will take us only 45 seconds to mow and is ready for play.  ;)