Indiana course upgrades range with synthetic ‘bunkers’

Chris Thuer faced a conundrum similar to so many other golf course superintendents: He wanted to upgrade, but didn’t have an endless budget.

In this case, Thuer, the golf course superintendent at Bear Slide Golf Club in Cicero, Indiana — designed by former PGA Tour player Dean Refram, and opened in 1991 about 30 miles north of Indianapolis — wanted to give some new life to a busy but bland driving range.

“It is a pretty well-regarded daily fee course — quite challenging, and we strive for high standards of maintenance — but we aren’t a high-budget facility,” Thuer said. “There are six guys, including me, on the crew in winter, and that goes up to 13 in summer. The range is quite nice and, as is normal on daily fee courses, it is an important asset for us: We get a lot of good golfers here, and they like to practice. But its big flaw was that the target green areas we had were very bland. There was a bit of mounding around them, but no real features. There were no bunkers, they would have been too expensive to maintain.”

Thuer had been exploring possible avenues to upgrade the range for several years. He ultimately opted for ZLine Bunker Systems’ Rangeline, which uses artificial turf to replace sand bunkers on practice ranges. He installed it in spring 2024.

“It was very easy to install,” he said. “We just cut the sod out, laid the material down and then pinned it in place. We laid a small amount of our bunker sand on top to help match the color. For each little bunker we did on the range, it took about two hours, start to finish. If the guys had finished mowing and the range was empty for a couple of hours, we could go out with the sod cutter and install one. This installation method allows the range ball picker to drive directly over the bunkers.”

The benefits, he said, far outweighed the cost — which was itself far less than what the club’s owners guessed he had spent on the nine “bunkers.”

“We put ‘bunkers’ around the three target greens that were closest to the tee, but not the two farthest away,” Thuer said. “They’re not real big, but from the tee they look much more impactive. We didn’t have to do any dirt work or excavating. It has been a real upgrade for our range.”