Faced with frequent heavy rainfall, and nearly 70 wash-out prone bunkers, South Staffordshire Golf Club has invested in the long term playability and maintenance of the course with a program of bunker improvements.
After thorough research, the team at South Staffs decided on a trial with industry leading erosion management specialists EcoBunker and its proprietary EcoTec™ bunker liner.
“Whenever we get heavy rainfall 50% of our bunkers get washed out and it takes us several days to get the course back in good condition,” said Mark Guy, Course Director at South Staffordshire Golf Club. “We needed a solution that drained well, held sand in place and reduced contamination. After a lot of research we settled on the EcoTec™ liner from EcoBunker and we’re delighted with the results.”
To accurately test the effectiveness of the EcoTec™ liner, the team installed three different options on the course. In one bunker they installed pipe drainage, hardcore and two layers of sand, in another simply hardcore and sand, and in the three bunkers surrounding the 18th green they installed pipe drainage and the EcoTec™ liner.
“The results have been quite clear. While drainage has improved in all cases, the EcoTec™ bunkers are now virtually maintenance free. They’re holding sand incredibly well, sand contamination has been eliminated and the amount of sand we are using has reduced dramatically,” continued Mark. “Drainage and wash-out were the main presenting issues, but in addition to performing brilliantly on those fronts, we are seeing many benefits including freeing up time to focus on other areas of the course.”
In addition to the final results of the trial, the team were impressed with the simple installation and the long-term cost savings from being able to take on future projects themselves.
“One of the deciding factors was that we could easily fit the liner ourselves,” concluded Mark. “Richard from EcoBunker came and trained the team on the first bunker and then we took over from there. It was such a simple process that the team picked up with ease. We’re now planning on upgrading the bunkers on the second and look forward to reaping the benefits for our maintenance team and keeping our members on course, whatever the weather.”
For more information on EcoBunker please visit www.ecobunker.co.uk