The ‘Redneck’ way

The best part of growing up on a horse farm is you learn to be creative. The adage of being able to fix anything with baling wire and duct tape was one of the first lessons learned. It’s amazing to me the similarities of training horses and being a golf course superintendent. Some of that “doing a lot with a little” mindset were the cornerstone of a bunker rebuild at Chariot Run last winter.

When I took over for the departed Roger Meier in 2010, the first winter project we did was to renovate a very ordinary greenside bunker into a stacked sod bunker that would not only be a nice addition to the links-style course but it also turned into a conversation piece and photo op for numerous Chariot Run golfers. The bunker everyone “loves to hate” turned a routine par 4 into a hole with a bunker that needed to be avoided. Many pictures were taken of golfers struggling to exit the 4-foot tall vertical walls.

But after three years of winter freezes, spring thaws, heavy rains and normal wear, the walls came tumbling down. Nothing short of a rebuild would bring this bunker back. So how would we keep the walls from collapsing again? After a few days of bouncing ideas off the staff and some family members, the idea of using the wall of a grain silo would be the best way of stabilizing the soil behind the stacked sod and give us the round shape we needed. Finding a used grain silo in the rural community we live in was not hard, only cost us a couple hundred dollars and a few hours labor to cut it up and haul it to the golf course. We used 6 feet of metal post and about 200 feet of rebar to anchor the wall and stabilize the sod. Our mechanic made U-bolts from all thread to attach the walls to the post. The rebar was driven through the sod into the ground and then wired to the post or walls.

I always felt the original bunker was too big around, so we were able to use the wall as a way of shrinking and shaping the rebuild. Another change was adding a small strip of native sod to the topside of the new bunker, which made mowing around the top much safer. The half-moon shaped native sod made the bunker look taller and helped to camouflage the added distance between the bunker and green.

It was not your typical bunker renovation. I doubt any architect ever included a grain silo on a blueprint, but in today’s golf economy of doing a lot with a little, the “Redneck” way worked for us.
 

David Beanblossom is superintendent at Chariot Run Golf Course in Lacxonia, Ind.