#17 bunkers day 2 and 3

The traps on 17 have been shaped and sodded, and all that remains is to edge, compact the floors, and add sand. It's been a whirlwind few days with the maintenance staff working sun-up to sun-down to get the project finished on time.

The rain has not been very cooperative, but despite that, we were able to finish most of the sod work before the big rain came.  This is important to protect the newly formed banks from eroding.  Unfortunately, the rain did prevent us from finishing the work on the trap floors, which must be completed before we can think about putting sand in.  Still not all bad for 3 days work.

Everybody wants to know when they will open.  We will have the area play as ground under repair for the next little while, but hopefully you will get to enjoy (or curse) the new traps before the golf season is over.  We have opened up the hole to play, but please DO NOT walk on the new sod and especially the steep faces.  Below are a few more pics from the weeks work.

Here, Simon is delicately forming the face of the bunker.

After the shaping is finished, we dug the drainage trenches with the backhoe.  Difficult with all the rock in the subgrade.

The trench is shot with a transit and lined with gravel.  Here the crew is installing the double-walled drain tile.

While we button up the right trap, Simon starts building the left trap.

Another shot of Simon putting some finishing touches on the right trap.

The drain line was trenched and tied in to our existing drain line.

Drain tile being covered with pea gravel.

All of the bunker faces were finished by hand-tamping.  The crew has a lot of sore shoulders this week.

Finishing the sod over the new drain line.

Meanwhile, the left trap excavation continues.

The pile in the center is the infant pile of bedrock that would end up being almost 10 feet tall.

And finally, the first piece of sod hits the ground.

Crew getting tired.  Aaron wants to go home.  No dice.

Simon had to literally chisel the last bit of bedrock out of the trap.  It made a cloud of dust while he was pounding away.

Sod work continues.

To move the last of the waste material, we worked well into the night and in the rain.

Day three had its own obstacles.  Our old steel pipe irrigation system reared its ugly head while digging the trench for the drains.  A few minutes of delay and an acetylene torch later, and we were back in business.

Drainage trench on the left side trap.

Face is tamped smooth and gravel going in the drain line.

With the severity of the slope, the sod work was difficult.

At one point we even needed a ladder to install the sod staples.